WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 


WILLIAM  OF  GERMANY 


BY 

STANLEY   SHAW,   LL.D. 

(TRINITY  COLLEGE,  DUBLIN) 


WITH    A    FRONTISPIECE 


NEW   YORK 
THE  MAGMILLAN  COMPANY 

1913 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTORY  .                .                .                .  .1 

II.  YOUTH  (1859-1881)                  ...  10 

III.  PRB-ACCESSION    DAYS   (1881-1887)          .  .      42 

IV.  "  VON   GOTTES  GNADEN  "     .                .               .  56 
V.  THE   ACCESSION    (1888-1890)       .               .  .69 

VI.  THE  COURT  OF  THE   EMPEROR        .  .  IO$ 

VII.  "DROPPING  THE   PILOT"  .  .  .12$ 

VIII.  SPACIOUS  TIMES   (1891-1899)  *  .  144 

IX.  THE   NEW  CENTURY    (1900-1901)  .  .    189 

X.  THE    EMPEROR   AND  THE  ARTS        .  .  2O5 

XI.  THE  NEW  CENTURY — continued  (1902-1904)     .  237 

XII.  MOROCCO   (1905)         .  .  .  .255 

XIII.  BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  (1906-1907)    275 

XIV.  THE    NOVEMBER  STORM    (1908).  .  .   289 
XV.  AFTER   THE  STORM  (1909-1913)      .                .  321 

XVI.      THE   EMPEROR   TO-DAY   ....   342 

INDEX  ......  391 

The  Frontispiece  is  from  a  plwtograpk  by  E.  Bieber,  of  Berlin 


WILLIAM  OF  GERMANY 


J-  INTRODUCTORY 

WILLIAM  THE  SECOND,  German  Emperor 
and  King  of  Prussia,  Burgrave  of  Niirnberg, 
Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  Landgrave  of 
Hessen  and  Thuringia,  Prince  of  Orange,  Knight  of  the 
Garter  and  Field-Marshal  of  Great  Britain,  etc.,  was  born 
in  Berlin  on  January  27,  1859,  and  ascended  the  throne 
on  June  15,  1888.  He  is,  therefore,  fifty-four  years  old 
in  the  present  year  of  his  Jubilee,  1913,  and  his  reign — 
happily  yet  unfinished — has  extended  over  a  quarter  of 
a  century. 

The  Englishman  who  would  understand  the  Emperor 
and  his  time  must  imagine  a  country  with  a  monarchy,  a 
government,  and  a  people — in  short,  a  political  system — 
almost  entirely  different  from  his  own.  In  Germany, 
paradoxical  though  it  may  sound  to  English  ears,  there 
is  neither  a  government  nor  a  people.  The  word 
"  government "  occurs  only  once  in  the  Imperial  Consti- 
tution, the  Magna  Charta  of  modern  Germans,  which  in 
1870  settled  the  relations  between  the  Emperor  and  what 
the  Englishman  calls  the  "  people,"  and  then  only  in  an 
unimportant  context  joined  to  the  word  "  federal." 

In  Germany,  instead  of  "  the  people  "  the  Englishman 
speaks  of  when  he  talks  politics,  and  the  democratic 


2  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

orator,  Mr.  Bryan,  in  America  is  fond  of  calling  the 
"peopul,"  there  is  a  "folk,"  who  neither  claim  to  be,  nor 
apparently  wish  to  be,  a  "  people  "  in  the  English  sense. 
The  German  folk  have  their  traditions  as  the  English 
people  have  traditions,  and  their  place  in  the  political 
system  as  the  English  people  have  ;  but  both  traditions 
and  place  are  wholly  different  from  those  of  the  English 
people ;  indeed,  it  may  be  said  are  just  the  reverse  of 
them. 

The  German  Emperor  believes,  and  assumes  his  people 
to  believe,  that  the  Hollenzollern  monarch  is  specially 
chosen  by  Heaven  to  guide  and  govern  a  folk  entrusted 
to  him  as  the  talent  was  entrusted  to  the  steward  in 
Scripture.  Until  1848,  a  little  over  sixty  years  ago,  the 
Emperor  (at  that  time  only  King  of  Prussia)  was  an 
absolute,  or  almost  absolute,  monarch,  supported  by 
soldiers  and  police,  and  his  wishes  were  practically 
law  to  the  folk.  In  that  year,  however,  owing  to  the 
influence  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  King,  by  the 
gift  of  a  Constitution,  abandoned  part  of  his  powers, 
but  not  any  governing  powers,  to  the  folk  in  the  form  of 
a  parliament,  with  permission  to  make  laws  for  itself, 
though  not  for  him.  To  pass  them,  that  is ;  for  they 
were  not  to  carry  the  laws  into  execution — that  was  a 
matter  the  King  kept,  as  the  Emperor  does  still,  in  his 
own  hands. 

The  business  of  making  laws  being,  as  experience 
shows,  provocative  of  discussion,  discussion  of  argument, 
and  argument  of  controversy,  there  now  arose  a  dozen 
or  more  parties  in  the  Parliament,  each  with  its  own  set 
of  controversial  opinions,  and  these  the  parties  applied 
to  the  novel  and  interesting  occupation  of  law-making. 

However,  it  did  not  matter  much  to  the  King,  so  long 
as  the  folk  did  not  ask  for  further,  or  worse  still,  as 
occurred  in  England,  for  all  his  powers  ;  and  accordingly 
the  parties  continued  their  discussions,  as  they  do  to-day, 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

sometimes  accepting  and  sometimes  rejecting  their  own 
or  the  King's  suggestions  about  law-making.  Generally 
speaking,  the  relation  is  not  unlike  that  established  by 
the  dame  who  said  to  her  husband,  "  When  we  are  of 
the  same  opinion,  you  are  right,  but  when  we  are  of 
different  opinions,  I  am  right."  If  the  Parliament  does 
not  agree  with  the  Emperor,  the  Emperor  dissolves  it. 

These  parties,  from  the  situation  of  their  seats  in  a 
parliament  of  397  deputies,  became  known  as  the  parties 
of  the  Right,  or  Conservative  parties,  and  the  parties  of 
the  Left,  or  Liberal  parties.  Between  them  sat  the 
members  of  the  Centre,  who,  as  representing  the  Catholic 
populations  of  Germany — roughly,  twenty-two  millions 
out  of  sixty-six — became  a  powerful  and  unchanging 
phalanx  of  a  hundred  deputies,  which  had  interests  and 
tactics  of  its  own  independently  of  Right  or  Left. 

By  and  by,  one  of  the  parties  of  the  Left,  representing 
the  classes  who  work  with  their  hands  as  distinguished 
from  the  classes  who  work  with  their  heads,  thought  they 
would  like  to  live  under  a  political  system  of  their  own 
making  and  began  to  show  a  strong  desire  to  take  all 
power  from  the  King  and  from  the  Parliament  too. 
They  agitated  and  organized,  and  organized  and  agitated, 
until  at  length,  having  settled  on  what  was  found  to  be 
an  attractive  theory,  they  made  a  wholly  separate  party, 
almost  a  people  and  parliament  of  their  own.  This  is 
known  as  the  Social  Democracy,  with,  at  present,  no 
deputies. 

Such,  in  a  comparatively  few  sentences,  is  the  political 
state  of  things  in  Germany.  It  might  indeed  be  ex- 
pressed in  still  fewer  words,  as  follows  :  Heaven  gave 
the  royal  house  of  Hohenzollern,  as  a  present,  a  folk. 
The  Hohenzollerns  gave  the  folk,  as  a  present,  a  parlia- 
ment, a  power  to  make  laws  without  the  power  of 
executing  them.  The  Social  Democrats  broke  off  from 
the  folk  and  took  an  anti-Hohenzollern  and  anti-popular 


4  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

attitude,  and  the  folk  in  their  Parliament  divided  into 
parties  to  pass  the  time,  and — of  course — make  laws. 

This  may  seem  to  be  treating  an  important  subject 
with  levity.  It  is  intended  merely  as  a  statement  of 
the  facts.  The  system  in  Germany  works  well,  to  an 
Englishman  indeed  surprisingly  so.  In  England  there 
is  no  Heaven-appointed  king  ;  all  the  powers  of  the 
King,  both  that  of  making  laws  and  of  administering 
them,  have  long  ago  been  taken  by  the  people  from 
the  King  and  entrusted  by  them  to  a  parliament,  the 
majority  of  whom,  called  the  Government,  represent 
the  majority  of  the  electing  voters.  In  the  case  of 
Germany  the  folk  have  surrendered  some  of  what  an 
Englishman  would  term  their  "  liberties,"  for  example, 
the  right  to  govern,  to  the  King,  to  be  used  for  the 
common  good ;  whereas  in  the  case  of  England,  the 
people  do  not  think  it  needful  to  surrender  any  of  their 
liberties,  least  of  all  the  government  of  their  country,  in 
order  to  attain  the  same  end. 

Thus,  while  the  German  Emperor  and  the  German 
folk  have  the  same  aims  as  the  English  King  and  the 
English  people,  the  common  weal  and  the  fair  fame 
of  their  respective  countries,  the  two  monarchs  and  the 
two  peoples  have  agreed  on  almost  contrary  ways  of 
trying  to  secure  them. 

The  political  system  of  Germany  has  had  to  be  sketched 
introductorily  as  for  the  Englishman,  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  an  understanding  of  the  German  Emperor's 
character  and  policy.  One  of  the  most  important  results 
of  the  character  and  policy  is  the  state  of  Anglo-German 
relations  ;  and  the  writer  is  convinced  that  if  the  character 
and  policy  were  better  and  more  generally  known  there 
would  be  no  estrangement  between  the  two  countries, 
but,  much  more  probably,  mutual  respect  and  mutual 
good-will. 

With    the    growth   of   this   knowledge,   the  writer   is 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

tempted  to  believe,  would  cease  a  delusion  that  appears 
to  exist  in  the  minds,  or  rather  the  imaginations,  of  two 
great  peoples,  the  delusion  that  the  highest  national 
interests  of  both  are  fundamentally  irreconcilable,  and 
that  the  policies  of  their  Governments  are  funda- 
mentally opposed. 

It  seems  indeed  as  though  neither  in  England  nor  in 
Germany  has  the  least  attention  been  paid  to  the  aston- 
ishing growth  of  commerce  between  the  countries  or 
to  the  repeated  declarations  made  through  a  long  series 
of  years  by  the  respective  Governments  on  their 
countries'  behalf.  The  growth  in  commerce  needs  no 
statistics  to  prove  it,  for  it  is  a  matter  of  everyday  obser- 
vation and  comment.  The  English  Government  declares 
it  a  vital  necessity  for  an  insular  Power  like  Great  Britain, 
with  colonies  and  duties  appertaining  to  their  possession 
in  all,  and  the  most  distant,  parts  of  the  world,  to  have  a 
navy  twice  as  powerful  as  that  of  any  other  possibly 
hostile  Power.  The  ordinary  German  immediately  cries 
out  that  England  is  planning  to  attack  him,  to  annihilate 
his  fleet,  destroy  his  commerce,  and  diminish  his  pres- 
tige among  the  nations.  The  German  Government 
repeatedly  declares  that  the  German  fleet  is  intended  for 
defence  not  aggression,  that  Germany  does  not  aim  at 
the  seizure  of  other  people's  property,  but  at  protecting 
her  growing  commerce,  at  standing  by  her  subjects  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  if  subjected  to  injury  or  insult,  and  at 
increasing  her  prestige,  and  with  it  her  power  for  good, 
in  the  family  of  nations.  The  ordinary  Englishman 
immediately  cries  out  that  Germany  is  seeking  to  dispute 
his  maritime  supremacy,  to  rob  him  of  his  colonies,  and 
to  appropriate  his  trade.  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  both 
Governments  are  telling  the  truth,  and  that  their  designs 
are  no  more  and  no  less  than  the  Governments  represent 
them  to  be  ?  The  necessity  for  Great  Britain  possessing 
an  all-powerful  fleet  that  will  keep  her  in  touch  with  her 


6  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

colonies  if  she  is  not  to  lose  them  altogether,  is  self- 
evident,  and  understood  by  even  the  most  Chauvinistic 
German.  The  necessity  for  Germany's  possessing  a 
fleet  strong  enough  to  make  her  rights  respected  is  as 
self-evident.  Moreover,  if  Germany's  fleet  is  a  luxury, 
as  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  says  it  is,  she  deserves  and  can 
afford  it.  As  a  nation  she  has  prospered  and  grown 
great,  not  by  a  policy  of  war  and  conquest,  but  by  hard 
work,  thrift,  self-denial,  fidelity  to  international  engage- 
ments, well-planned  instruction,  and  first-rate  organiza- 
tion. Why  should  she  not,  if  she  thinks  it  advisable  and 
is  willing  to  spend  the  money  on  it,  supply  herself  with 
an  arm  of  defence  in  proportion  to  her  size,  her  pros- 
perity, and  her  desert  ?  It  may  be  that,  as  Mr.  Norman 
Angell  holds,  the  entire  policy  of  great  armaments  is 
based  on  economic  error ;  but  unless  and  until  it  is 
clear  that  the  German  navy  is  intended  for  aggression,  its 
growth  may  be  viewed  by  the  rest  of  the  world  with 
equanimity,  and  by  the  Englishman,  as  a  connoisseur 
in  such  matters,  with  admiration  as  well.  A  man  may 
buy  a  motor-car  which  his  friends  and  neighbours  think 
must  be  costly  and  pretentious  beyond  his  means  ;  but 
that  is  his  business  ;  and  if  the  man  finds  that,  owing  to 
good  management  and  industry  and  skill,  his  business  is 
growing  and  that  a  motor-car  is,  though  in  some  not 
absolutely  clear  and  definite  way,  of  advantage  to  him  in 
business  and  satisfying  to  his  legitimate  pride — why  on 
earth  should  he  not  buy  or  build  it  ? 

The  truth  is  that  if  our  ordinary  Englishman  and 
German  were  to  sit  down  together,  and  with  the  help  of 
books,  maps,  and  newspapers,  carefully  and  without  pre- 
judice, consider  the  annals  of  their  respective  countries 
for  the  last  sixteen  years  with  a  view  to  establishing  the 
causes  of  their  delusion,  they  could  hardly  fail  to  confess 
that  it  was  due  to  neither  believing  a  word  the  other 
said  ;  to  each  crediting  the  other  with  motives  which, 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

as  individuals  and  men  of  honesty  and  integrity  in  the 
private  relations  of  life,  each  would  indignantly  repudiate; 
to  each  assuming  the  other  to  be  in  the  condition 
of  barbarism  mankind  began  to  emerge  from  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago  ;  to  both  supposing  that  Christianity 
has  had  so  little  influence  on  the  world  that  peoples  are 
still  compelled  to  live  and  go  about  their  daily  work 
armed  to  the  teeth  lest  they  may  be  bludgeoned  and 
robbed  by  their  neighbours ;  that  the  hundreds  of 
treaties  solemnly  signed  by  contracting  nations  are  mere 
pieces  of  waste  paper  only  testifying  to  the  profundity 
and  extent  of  human  hypocrisy ;  that  churches  and 
cathedrals  have  been  built,  universities,  colleges,  and 
schools  founded,  only  to  fill  the  empty  air  with  noise  ; 
that  the  printing  presses  of  all  countries  have  been 
occupied  turning  out  myriads  of  books  and  papers  which 
have  had  no  effect  on  the  reason  or  conscience  of  man- 
kind ;  that  nations  learn  nothing  from  experience  ;  and 
to  each  supposing  that  he  and  his  fellow-countrymen 
alone  are  the  monopolists  of  wisdom,  honour,  truth, 
justice,  charity — in  short,  of  all  the  attributes  and  bless- 
ings of  civilization.  Is  it  not  time  to  discard  such 
error,  or  must  the  nations  always  suspect  each  other  ? 
To  finish  with  our  introduction,  and  notwithstanding 
that  qui  s' excuse  s'accuse,  the  biographer  may  be  permitted 
to  say  a  few  words  on  his  own  behalf.  Inasmuch  as  the 
subject  of  his  biography  is  still,  as  has  been  said,  happily 
alive,  and  is,  moreover,  in  the  prime  of  his  maturity,  his 
life  cannot  be  reviewed  as  a  whole  nor  the  ultimate  con- 
sequences of  his  character  and  policy  be  foretold.  The 
biographer  of  the  living  cannot  write  with  the  detach- 
ment permissible  to  the  historian  of  the  dead.  No 
private  correspondence  of  the  Emperor's  is  available 
to  throw  light  on  his  more  intimate  personal  disposition 
and  relationships.  There  have  been  many  rumours  of 
war  since  his  accession,  but  no  European  war  of  great 


8  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

importance  ;  and  if  a  few  minor  campaigns  in  tropical 
countries  be  excepted,  Germany  for  over  forty  years, 
thanks  largely  to  the  Emperor,  has  enjoyed  the  advan- 
tages of  peace. 

From  the  pictorial  and  sensational  point  of  view  con- 
tinuous peace  is  a  drawback  for  the  biographer  no  less 
than  for  the  historian.  What  would  history  be  without 
war  ? — almost  inconceivable  ;  since  wars,  not  peace,  are 
the  principal  materials  with  which  it  deals  and  supply  it 
with  most  of  its  vitality  and  interest — must  it  also  be 
admitted,  its  charm  ?  For  what  are  Hannibal  or 
Napoleon  or  Frederick  the  Great  remembered  ? — for 
their  wars,  and  little  else.  Shakespeare  has  it  that — 

"  Men's  evil  manners  live  in  brass ;  their  virtues 
We  write  in  water." 

Who,  asks  Heine,  can  name  the  artist  who  designed  the 
cathedral  of  Cologne  ?  In  this  regard  the  biographer  of 
an  emperor  is  almost  as  dependent  as  the  historian. 

The  biography  of  an  emperor,  again,  must  be  to  a 
large  extent,  the  history  of  his  reign,  and  in  no  case  is 
this  more  true  than  in  that  of  Emperor  William.  But 
he  has  been  closely  identified  with  every  event  of  general 
importance  to  the  world  since  he  mounted  the  throne, 
and  the  world's  attention  has  been  fastened  without 
intermission  on  his  words  and  conduct.  The  rise  of  the 
modern  German  Empire  is  the  salient  fact  of  the  world's 
history  for  the  last  half-century,  and  accordingly  only 
from  this  broader  point  of  view  will  the  Emperor's 
future  biographer,  or  the  historian  of  the  future,  be 
able  to  do  him  or  his  Empire  justice. 

Lastly,  another  difficulty,  if  one  may  call  it  so,  ex- 
perienced equally  by  the  biographer  and  the  historian, 
is  the  fact  that  the  life  of  the  Emperor  has  been 
blameless  from  the  moral  standpoint.  On  two  or  three 
occasions  early  in  the  reign  accounts  were  published  of 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

scandals  at  the  Court.  They  may  not  have  been  wholly 
baseless,  but  none  of  them  directly  involved  the  Em- 
peror, or  even  raised  a  doubt  as  to  his  respectability 
or  reputation.  Take  from  history — or  from  biography 
for  that  matter — the  vices  of  those  it  treats  of,  and 
one-third,  perhaps  one-half,  of  its  "human  interest" 
disappears. 

In  the  circumstances,  therefore,  all  the  writer  need  add 
is  that  he  has  done  the  best  he  could.  He  has  ignored, 
certainly,  at  two  or  three  stages  of  his  narration,  the 
demands  of  strict  chronological  succession  ;  but  if  so,  it 
has  been  to  describe  some  of  the  more  important  events 
of  the  reign  in  their  totality.  He  has  also  felt  it  necessary, 
as  writing  for  English  readers  of  a  country  not  their 
own,  to  combine  a  portion  of  history  with  his  bio- 
graphy. If,  at  the  same  time,  he  has  ventured  to  infuse 
into  both  biography  and  history  a  slight  admixture  of 
philosophy,  he  can  only  hope  that  the  fusion  will  not 
prove  altogether  disagreeable. 


II 

YOUTH 

1859^-1881 

AS  the  education  of  a  prince,  and  the  surroundings 
in  which  he  is  brought  up,  are  usually  different 
from  the  education  and  surroundings  of  his 
subjects,  it  is  not  surprising  if,  at  least  during  some 
portion  of  his  reign,  and  until  he  has  graduated  in  the 
university  of  life,  misunderstandings,  if  nothing  worse, 
should  occur  between  them  :  indeed  the  wonder  is  that 
princes  and  people  succeed  in  living  harmoniously  to- 
gether. They  are  separated  by  great  gulfs  both  of  senti- 
ment and  circumstance.  Bismarck  is  quoted  by  one  of 
his  successors,  Prince  Hohenlohe,  as  remarking  that  every 
King  of  Prussia,  with  whatever  popularity  he  began  his 
reign,  was  invariably  hated  at  the  close  of  it. 

The  prince  that  would  rule  well  has  to  study  the 
science  of  government,  itself  a  difficult  and  incom- 
pletely explored  subject,  and  the  art  of  administration  ; 
he  has  to  know  history,  and  above  all  the  history  of  his 
own  country  ;  not  that  history  is  a  safe  or  certain  guide, 
but  that  it  informs  him  of  traditions  he  will  be  expected 
to  continue  in  his  own  country  and  respect  in  that  of 
others  ;  he  must  understand  the  political  system  under 
which  his  people  choose  to  live,  and  the  play  of  political, 
religious,  economic,  and  social  forces  which  are  ever  at 
work  in  a  community  ;  he  must  learn  to  speak  and 
understand  (not  always  quite  the  same  thing)  other 


YOUTH  n 

languages  besides  his  own  ;  and  concurrently  with  these 
studies  he  must  endeavour  to  develop  in  himself  the 
personal  qualities  demanded  by  his  high  office — 
health  and  activity  of  body,  quick  comprehension  and 
decision,  a  tenacious  memory  for  names  and  faces, 
capacity  for  public  speaking,  patience,  and  that  command 
over  the  passions  and  prejudices,  natural  or  acquired, 
which  is  necessary  for  his  moral  influence  as  a  ruler. 
On  what  percentage  of  his  subjects  is  such  a  curriculum 
imposed,  and  what  allowances  should  not  be  made 
if  a  full  measure  of  success  is  not  achieved  ? 

But  even  when  the  prince  has  done  all  this,  there  is 
still  a  study,  the  most  comprehensive  and  most  important 
of  all,  in  which  he  should  be  learned — the  study  of 
humanity,  and  in  especial  that  part  of  it  with  the  care  of 
whose  interests  and  happiness  he  is  to  be  charged.  A 
few  people  seem  to  have  this  knowledge  instinctively, 
others  acquire  something  of  it  in  the  school  of  sad  ex- 
perience. It  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Emperor,  if,  in  his 
youth,  his  knowledge  of  humanity  was  not  profound. 
There  was  always  a  strong  vein  of  idealism  and  romance 
among  Hohenzollerns,  the  vein  of  a  Lohengrin,  a 
Tancred,  or  some  mediaeval  knight.  The  Emperor,  of 
course,  never  lived  among  the  common  people;  never 
had  to  work  for  a  living  in  competition  with  a  thousand 
others  more  fortunate  than  he,  or  better  endowed  by 
nature  with  the  qualities  and  gifts  that  make  for  worldly 
success  ;  never,  so  far  as  is  known  to  a  watchful  and  ex- 
ceptionally curious  public,  endured  domestic  sorrow  of  a 
deep  or  lasting  kind  ;  never  suffered  materially  or  in  his 
proper  person  from  ingratitude,  carelessness,  or  neglect ; 
never  knew  the  "  penalty  of  Adam,  the  seasons'  differ- 
ence "  ;  never,  in  short,  felt  those  pains  one  or  more  .of 
which  almost  all  the  rest  of  mankind  have  at  one  time  or 
other  to  bear  as  best  they  may. 

The  Emperor  has   always  been  happy   in  his  family, 


12  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

happy  in  seeing  his  country  prosperous,  happy  in  the 
admiration  and  respect  of  the  people  of  all  nations  ;  and 
if  he  has  passed  through  some  dark  hours,  he  must  feel 
happy  in  having  nobly  borne  them.  Want  of  knowledge 
of  the  trials  of  ordinary  humanity  is,  of  course,  no  matter 
of  reproach  to  him  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  matter  of  con- 
gratulation ;  and,  as  several  of  his  frankest  deliverances 
show,  he  has,  both  as  man  and  monarch,  felt  many  a 
pang,  many  a  regret,  many  a  disappointment,  the  intensity 
of  which  cannot  be  gauged  by  those  who  have  not  felt 
the  weight  of  his  responsibilities. 

A  discharge  of  101  guns  in  the  gardens  of  Crown 
Prince  Frederick's  palace  in  Berlin  on  the  morning  of 
January  27,  1859,  announced  the  birth  of  the  future 
Emperor.  There  were  no  portents  in  that  hour.  Nature 
proceeded  calmly  with  her  ordinary  tasks.  Heaven  gave 
no  special  sign  that  a  new  member  of  the  Hohenzollern 
family  had  appeared  on  the  planet  Earth,  Nothing,  in 
short,  occurred  to  strengthen  the  faith  of  those  who 
believe  in  the  doctrine  of  kingship  by  divine  appoint- 
ment. 

It  was  a  time  of  political  and  social  turmoil  in  many 
countries,  the  groundswell,  doubtless,  of  the  revolutionary 
wave  of  1848.  The  Crimean  War,  the  Indian  Mutiny, 
and  the  war  with  China  had  kept  England  in  a  continual 
state  of  martial  fever,  and  the  agitation  for  electoral 
reform  was  beginning.  Lord  Palmerston  was  Prime 
Minister,  with  Lord  Odo  Russell  as  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs  and  Mr.  Gladstone  as  Minister  of  Finance. 
Napoleon  III  was  at  war  with  Austria  as  the  ally 
of  Italy,  where  King  Emmanuel  II  and  Cavour  were 
laying  the  foundations  of  their  country's  unity.  Russia, 
after  defeating  Schamyl,  the  hero  of  the  Caucasus,  was 
pursuing  her  policy  of  penetration  in  Central  Asia. 

In  Prussia  the  unrest  was  chiefly  domestic.  The 
country,  while  nominally  a  Great  Power,  was  neutral 


YOUTH  13 

during  the  Crimean  War,  and  played  for  the  moment 
but  a  small  part  in  foreign  politics.  Bismarck,  in  his 
"Gedanke  und  Erinnerungen,"  compares  her  submis- 
sion to  Austria  to  the  patience  of  the  French  noble- 
man he  heard  of  when  minister  in  Paris,  whose  Conduct 
in  condoning  twenty-four  acts  of  flagrant  infidelity  on 
the  part  of  his  wife  was  regarded  by  the  French  as 
an  act  of  great  forbearance  and  magnanimity.  Prince 
William,  the  Emperor's  grandfather,  afterwards  William  I, 
first  German  Emperor,  was  on  the  throne,  acting  as 
Prince  Regent  for  his  brother,  Frederick  William  IV, 
incapacitated  from  ruling  by  an  affection  of  the  brain. 
The  head  of  the  Prussian  Ministry,  Manteuffel,  had  been 
dismissed,  and  a  "  new  era,"  with  ministers  of  more 
liberal  tendencies,  among  them  von  Bethmann  Hollweg, 
an  ancestor  of  the  present  Chancellor,  had  begun. 
General  von  Roon  was  Minister  of  War  and  Marine, 
offices  at  that  time  united  in  one  department.  The 
Italian  War  had  roused  Germany  anew  to  a  desire  for 
union,  and  a  great  "national  society"  was  founded  at 
Frankfurt,  with  the  Liberal  leader,  Rudolf  von  Bennigsen, 
at  its  head.  Public  attention  was  occupied  with  the 
subject  of  reorganizing  the  army  and  increasing  it  from 
150,000  to  210,000  men.  Parliament  was  on  the  eve 
of  a  bitter  constitutional  quarrel  with  Bismarck,  who 
became  Prussian  Prime  Minister  (Minister  President) 
in  1862,  about  the  grant  of  the  necessary  army  funds. 
Most  of  the  great  intellects  of  Germany — Kant,  Goethe, 
Schiller,  Hegel,  Fichte,  Schleiermacher — had  long  passed 
away.  Heinrich  Heine  died  in  Paris  in  1856.  Frederick 
Nietzsche  was  a  youth,  Richard  Wagner's  "  Tannhauser  " 
had  just  been  greeted,  in  the  presence  of  the  composer, 
with  a  storm  of  hisses  in  the  Opera  house  at  Paris.  The 
social  condition  of  Germany  may  be  partially  realized  if 
one  remembers  that  the  death-rate  was  over  28  per  milU; 
as  compared  with  17  per  mille  to-day ;  that  only  a  start 


14  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

had  been  made  with  railway  construction ;  that  the 
country,  with  its  not  very  generous  soil,  depended  wholly 
upon  agriculture  ;  that  savings-bank  deposits  were  not 
one-twelfth  of  what  they  are  n^w  ;  that  there  were  60 
training  schools  where  there  are  221  to-day,  and  338 
evening  classes  as  against  4,588  in  1910 ;  that  many 
of  the  principal  towns  were  still  lighted  by  oil  ; 
that  there  was  practically  no  navy ;  and  that  the  bulk 
of  the  aristocracy  lived  on  about  the  same  scale  as  the 
contemporary  English  yeoman  farmer.  Berlin  con- 
tained a  little  less  than  half  a  million  inhabitants,  com- 
pared with  its  three  and  a  half  millions  of  to-day,  and 
the  state  of  its  sanitation  may  be  imagined  from  the 
fact  that  open  drains  ran  down  the  streets. 

The  Emperor's  father,  Frederick  III,  second  German 
Emperor,  was  affectionately  known  to  his  people  as 
"unser  Fritz,"  because  of  his  liberal  sympathies  and 
of  his  high  and  kindly  character.  To  most  Englishmen 
he  is  perhaps  better  known  as  the  husband  of  the 
Princess,  afterwards  Empress,  Adelaide  Victoria,  eldest 
daughter  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  mother  of  the  Emperor. 
Frederick  III  had  no  great  share  in  the  political  events 
which  were  the  birth-pangs  of  modern  Germany,  unless 
his  not  particularly  distinguished  leadership  in  the  war  of 
1866  and  that  with  France  be  so  considered.  The  greater 
part  of  his  life  was  .passed  as  Crown  Prince,  and  a  Crown 
Prince  in  Germany  leads  a  life  more  or  less  removed 
from  political  responsibilities.  He  succeeded  his  father, 
William  I,  on  the  latter's  death,  March  9,  1888,  reigned 
for  ninety-nine  days,  and  died,  on  June  i5th  following, 
from  cancer  of  the  throat,  after  an  illness  borne  with 
exemplary  fortitude. 

To  what  extent  the  character  of  his  parents  affected 
the  character  of  the  Emperor  it  is  impossible  to  deter- 
mine. The  Emperor  seldom  refers  to  his  parents  in  his 
speeches,  and  reserves  most  of  his  panegyric  for  his 


YOUTH  15 

grandfather  and  his  grandfather's  mother,  Queen  Louise  ; 
but  the  comparative  neglect  is  probably  due  to  no  want 
of  filial  admiration  and  respect,  while  the  frequent  refer- 
ences to  his  grandfather  in  particular  are  explained  by  the 
great  share  the  latter  took  in  the  formation  of  the  Empire 
and  by  his  unbounded  popularity.  The  Crown  Prince 
was  an  affectionate  but  not  an  easy-going  father,  with  a 
passion  for  the  arts  and  sciences ;  his  mother  also  was 
a  disciplinarian,  and,  equally,  with  her  husband, 
passionately  fond  of  art ;  and  it  is  therefore  not  improb- 
able that  these  traits  descended  to  the  Emperor.  As 
to  whether  the  alleged  "  liberality  "  of  the  Crown  Prince 
descended  to  him  depends  on  the  sense  given  to  the 
word  "  liberal."  If  it  is  taken  to  mean  an  ardent  desire 
for  the  good  and  happiness  of  the  people,  it  did ;  if  it  is 
taken  to  mean  any  inclination  to  give  the  people  authority 
to  govern  themselves  and  direct  their  own  destinies, 
it  did  not. 

The  mother  of  the  Emperor,  the  Empress  Frederick, 
had  much  of  Queen  Victoria's  good  sense  and  still  more 
of  her  strong  will.  A  thoroughly  English  princess,  she 
had,  in  German  eyes,  one  serious  defect  :  she  failed  to 
see,  or  at  least  to  acknowledge,  the  superiority  of  most 
things  German  to  most  things  English.  She  had  an 
English  nurse,  Emma  Hobbs,  to  assist  at  the  birth 
of  the  future  Emperor.  She  made  English  the  language 
of  the  family  life,  and  never  lost  her  English  tastes 
and  sympathies  ;  consequently  she  was  called,  always 
with  an  accent  of  reproach,  "  the  Englanderin,"  and  in 
German  writings  is  represented  as  having  wished  to 
anglicize  not  only  her  husband,  her  children,  and  her 
Court,  but  also  her  adopted  country  and  its  people. 
A  chaplain  of  the  English  Church  in  Berlin,  the  Rev. 
J.  H.  Fry,  who  met  her  many  times,  describes  her  as 
follows  : — 

"  She  was  not   the  wife  for  a  German  Emperor,  she 


16  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

was  so  English  and  insisted  so  strongly  on  her  English 
ways.  The  result  was  that  she  was  very  unpopular  in 
Germany,  and  the  Germans  said  many  wicked  things 
of  her.  She  hated  Berlin,  and  if  her  son,  the  present 
Emperor,  had  not  required  that  she  should  come  to  the 
capital  every  winter,  she  would  have  lived  altogether  at 
Cronberg  in  the  villa  an  Italian  friend  bequeathed 
to  her. 

"  She  was  extremely  musical,  had  extensively  cultivated 
her  talents  in  this  respect,  and  was  an  accomplished 
linguist.  Like  her  mother,  Queen  Victoria,  she  was  un- 
usually strong-minded,  and  was  always  believed  to  rule 
over  her  amiable  and  gentle  husband.  Her  interest  in 
the  English  community  was  great,  another  reason  for  the 
dislike  with  which  the  Germans  regarded  her.  To  her 
the  community  owes  the  pretty  little  English  church  in 
the  Mon  Bijou  Platz  (Berlin),  which  she  used  to  attend 
regularly,  and  where  a  funeral  service,  at  which  the 
Emperor  was  present,  was  held  in  memory  of  her. 

"  German  feeling  was  further  embittered  against  her  by 
the  Morell  Mackenzie  incident,  and  to  this  day  contro- 
versy rages  round  the  famous  English  surgeon's  name. 
The  controversy  is  as  to  whether  or  not  Morell  Mackenzie 
honestly  believed  what  he  said  when  he  diagnosed  the 
Emperor's  illness  as  non-cancerous  in  opposition  to  the 
opinion  of  distinguished  German  doctors  like  Professor 
Bergmann.  Under  German  law  no  one  can  mount  the 
throne  of  Prussia  who  is  afflicted  with  a  mortal  sick- 
ness. For  long  it  had  been  suspected  that  the  Emperor's 
throat  was  fatally  affected,  and,  therefore,  when  King 
William  was  dying,  it  became  of  dynastic  and  national 
importance  to  establish  the  fact  one  way  or  other. 
Queen  Victoria  was  ardently  desirous  of  seeing  her 
daughter  an  Empress,  and  sent  Sir  Morrell  Mackenzie 
to  Germany  to  examine  the  royal  patient.  On  the  verdict 
being  given  that  the  disease  was  not  cancer,  the  Crown 


YOUTH  17 

Prince  mounted  the  throne,  and  Queen  Victoria's 
ambition  for  her  daughter  was  realized. 

"  The  Empress  also  put  the  aristocracy  against  her 
by  introducing  several  relaxations  into  Court  etiquette 
which  had  up  to  her  time  been  stiff  and  formal.  Her 
relations  with  Bismarck,  as  is  well  known,  were  for 
many  years  strained,  and  on  one  occasion  she  made  the 
remark  that  the  tears  he  had  caused  her  to  shed  '  would 
fill  tumblers.'  On  the  whole  she  was  an  excellent  wife 
and  mother.  She  was  no  doubt  in  some  degree  respon- 
sible for  the  admiration  of  England  as  a  country  and  of 
the  English  as  a  people  which  is  a  marked  feature  of  the 
Emperor's  character." 

This  account  is  fairly  correct  in  its  estimation  of  the 
Empress  Frederick's  character  and  abilities,  but  it  repeats 
a  popular  error  in  saying  that  German  law  lays  down  that 
no  one  can  mount  the  Prussian  throne  if  he  is  afflicted 
with  a  mortal  sickness.  There  is  no  "  German  law  "  on 
the  subject,  and  the  law  intended  to  be  referred  to  is 
the  so-called  "  house-law,"  which,  as  in  the  case  of 
other  German  noble  families,  regulates  the  domestic 
concerns  of  the  House  of  Hohenzollern.  Bismarck  dis- 
poses of  the  assertion  that  a  Hohenzollern  prince  mor- 
tally stricken  is  not  capable  of  succession  as  a  "  fable," 
and  adds  that  the  Constitution,  too,  contains  no  stipula- 
tion of  the  sort.  The  influence  of  his  mother  on  the 
Emperor's  character  did  not  extend  beyond  his  child- 
hood, while  probably  the  only  natural  dispositions  he 
inherited  from  her  were  his  strength  of  will  and  his 
appreciation  of  classical  art  and  music.  Many  of  her 
political  ideas  were  diametrically  opposed  to  those  of  her 
son.  Her  love  of  art  made  her  pro-French,  and  her  visit 
to  Paris,  it  will  be  remembered,  not  being  made  incog- 
nito, led  to  international  unpleasantness,  originating  in 
the  foolish  Chauvinism  of  some  leading  French  painters 
whose  ateliers  she  desired  to  inspect.  She  believed  in  a 


i8  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

homogeneous  German  Empire  without  any  federation  of 
kingdoms  and  states,  advocated  a  Constitution  for  Russia, 
and  was  satisfied  that  the  common  sense  of  a  people 
outweighed  its  ignorance  and  stupidity. 

The  Emperor  has  four  sisters  and  a  brother.  The 
sisters  are  Charlotte,  born  in  1860,  and  married  to  the 
Hereditary  Prince  of  Saxe-Meiningen  ;  Victoria,  born  in 
1866,  and  married  to  Prince  Adolphus  of  Schaumberg- 
Lippe ;  Sophie,  born  in  1870,  and  married  to  King 
Constantine,  of  Greece  ;  and  Margarete,  born  in  1872, 
and  married  to  Prince  Friederich  Karl  of  Hessen. 

The  Emperor's  only  brother,  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia, 
was  born  in  1862,  and  is  married  to  Princess  Irene  of 
Hessen.  He  is  probably  the  most  popular  Hohenzollern 
to-day.  He  adopted  the  navy  as  a  profession  and  devotes 
himself  to  its  duties,  taking  no  part  in  politics.  Like  the 
Emperor  himself  and  the  Emperor's  heir,  the  Crown 
Prince,  he  is  a  great  promoter  of  sport,  and  while  a  fair 
golfer  (with  a  handicap  of  14)  and  tennis  player,  gives 
much  of  his  leisure  to  the  encouragement  of  the  auto- 
mobile and  other  industries.  Every  Hohenzollern  is 
supposed  to  learn  a  handicraft.  The  Emperor  did  not, 
owing  to  his  shortened  left  arm.  Prince  Henry  learned 
book-binding  under  a  leading  Berlin  bookbinder,  Herr 
Collin.  The  Crown  Prince  is  a  turner.  Prince  Henry 
seems  perfectly  satisfied  with  his  position  in  the  Empire 
as  Inspector-General  of  the  Fleet,  stands  to  attention 
when  talking  to  the  Emperor  in  public,  and  on  formal 
occasions  addresses  him  as  "Majesty"  like  every  one 
else.  Only  in  private  conversation  does  he  allow  himself 
the  use  of  the  familiar  Du.  The  Emperor  has  a  strong 
affection  for  him,  and  always  calls  him  "  Heinrich." 

Many  stories  are  current  in  Germany  relating  to  the 
early  part  of  the  Emperor's  boyhood.  Some  are  true, 
others  partially  so,  while  others  again  are  wholly  apoch- 
ryphal.  All,  however,  are  more  or  less  characteristic 


YOUTH  19 

of  the  boy  and  his  surroundings,  and  for  this  reason  a 
selection  of  them  may  be  given.  Apropos  of  his  birth,  the 
following  story  is  told.  An  artillery  officer  went  to  receive 
orders  for  the  salute  to  be  discharged  when  the  birth 
occurred.  They  were  given  him  by  the  then  Prince 
Regent,  afterwards  Emperor  William  I.  The  officer 
showed  signs  of  perplexity.  "  Well,  is  there  anything 
else?"  inquired  the  Regent.  "Yes,  Royal  Highness;  I 
have  instructions  for  the  birth  of  a  prince  and  for  that 
of  a  princess  (which  would  be  30  guns)  ;  but  what  if 
it  should  be  twins?"  The  Regent  laughed.  "In  that 
case,"  he  said,  "follow  the  Prussian  rule — suum  cuique." 

When  the  child  was  born  the  news  ran  like  wildfire 
through  Berlin,  and  all  the  high  civil  and  military  officials 
drove  off  in  any  vehicle  they  could  find  to  offer  their 
congratulations.  The  Regent,  who  was  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  jumped  into  a  common  cab.  Immediately  after 
him  appeared  tough  old  Field- Marshal  Wrangel,  the  hero 
of  the  Danish  wars.  He  wrote  his  name  in  the  callers' 
book,  and  on  issuing  from  the  palace  shouted  to  the 
assembled  crowd,  "  Children,  it's  all  right :  a  fine  stout 
recruit."  On  the  evening  of  the  birth  a  telegram  came 
from  Queen  Victoria,  "  Is  it  a  fine  boy  ?  "  and  the  answer 
went  back,  "  Yes,  a  very  fine  boy." 

Another  story  describes  how  the  child  was  brought  to 
submit  cheerfully  to  the  ordeal  of  the  tub.  He  was 
"  water-shy,"  like  the  vast  majority  of  Germans  at  that 
time,  and  the  nurses  had  to  complain  to  his  father, 
Crown  Prince  Frederick,  of  his  resistance.  The  Crown 
Prince  thereupon  directed  the  sentry  at  the  palace  gate 
not  to  salute  the  boy  when  he  was  taken  out  for  his 
customary  airing.  The  boy  remarked  the  neglect  and 
complained  to  his  father,  who  explained  that  "  sentries 
were  not  allowed  to  present  arras  to  an  unwashed 
prince."  The  stratagem  succeeded,  and  thereafter  the 
lad  submitted  to  the  bathing  with  a  good  grace. 


20  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Like  all  boys,  the  lad  was  fond  of  the  water,  though  now 
in  another  sense.  At  the  age  of  two,  nursery  chroniclers 
relate,  he  had  a  toy  boat,  the  Fortuna,  in  which  he  sat 
and  see-sawed — and  learned  not  to  be  sea-sick  !  At  three 
he  was  put  into  sailor's  costume,  with  the  bell-shaped 
trousers  so  dear  to  the  hearts  of  English  mothers  fifty 
years  ago. 

At  the  age  of  four  he  had  a  memorable  experience, 
though  it  is  hardly  likely  that  now,  after  the  lapse  of  half 
a  century,  he  remembers  much  about  it.  This  was  his 
first  visit  to  England  in  1863,  when  he  was  taken  by  his 
parents  to  be  present  at  the  marriage  of  his  uncle,  King 
Edward  VII,  then  Prince  of  Wales.  The  boy,  in  pretty 
Highland  costume,  was  an  object  of  general  attention, 
and  occupies  a  prominent  place  in  the  well-known  picture 
of  the  wedding  scene  by  the  artist  Frith.  The  ensuing 
fifteen  years  saw  him  often  on  English  soil  with  his  father 
and  mother,  staying  usually  at  Osborne  Castle,  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight.  Here,  it  may  be  assumed,  he  first  came  in 
close  contact  with  the  ocean,  watched  the  English  war- 
ships passing  up  and  down,  and  imbibed  some  of  that 
delight  in  the  sea  which  is  not  the  least  part  of  the 
heritage  of  Englishmen.  The  visits  had  a  decided  effect 
on  him,  for  at  ten  we  find  him  with  a  row-boat  on  the 
Havel  and  learning  to  swim,  and  on  one  occasion  rowing 
a  distance  of  twenty-five  miles  between  6  a.m.  and  3  p.m. 
About  this  time  he  used  to  take  part  with  his  parents  in 
excursions  on  the  Royal  Louise,  a  miniature  frigate  pre- 
sented by  George  IV  to  Frederick  William  III. 

Still  another  story  concerns  the  boy  and  his  father. 
The  former  came  one  day  in  much  excitement  to  his 
tutor  and  said  his  father  had  just  blamed  him  unjustly.  He 
told  the  tutor  what  had  really  happened  and  asked  him, 
if,  under  the  circumstances,  he  was  to  blame.  The  tutor 
was  in  perplexity,  for  if  he  said  the  father  had  acted 
unjustly,  as  in  fact  he  thought  he  had,  he  might  lessen 


YOUTH  21 

the  son's  filial  respect.  However,  he  gave  his  candid 
opinion.  "  My  Prince,"  he  said,  "  the  greatest  men  of 
all  times  have  occasionally  made  mistakes,  for  to  err 
is  human.  I  must  admit  I  think  your  father  was  in  the 
wrong."  "  Really  ! "  cried  the  lad,  who  looked  pained. 
"  I  thought  you  would  tell  me  I  was  in  the  wrong,  and 
as  I  know  how  right  you  always  are  I  was  ready  to  go  to 
papa  and  beg  his  pardon.  What  shall  I  do  now  ? " 
"  Leave  it  to  me,"  the  tutor  said,  and  afterwards  told  the 
Crown  Prince  what  had  passed.  The  Crown  Prince 
sent  for  his  son,  who  came  and  stood  with  downcast 
eyes  some  paces  off.  The  Crown  Prince  only  uttered  the 
two  words,  "  My  son,"  but  in  a  tone  of  great  affection. 
As  he  folded  the  Prince  in  his  arms  he  reached  his  hand 
to  the  tutor,  saying,  "  I  thank  you.  Be  always  as  true  to 
me  and  to  my  son  as  you  have  been  in  this  case." 

The  last  anecdote  belongs  also  to  the  young  Prince's 
private  tutor  days.  At  one  time  a  certain  Dr.  D.  was 
teaching  him.  Every  morning  at  eleven  work  was  dropped 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  enable  the  pair,  teacher  and 
pupil,  to  take  what  is  called  in  German  "second  break- 
fast." The  Prince  always  had  a  piece  of  white  bread  and 
butter,  with  an  apple,  a  pear,  or  other  fruit,  while  the 
teacher  was  as  regularly  provided  with  something  warm — 
a  chop,  a  cutlet,  a  slice  of  fish,  salmon,  perch,  trout, 
or  whatever  was  in  season,  accompanied  by  salad  and 
potatoes.  The  smell  of  the  meat  never  failed  to  appeal 
to  the  olfactory  nerves  of  the  Prince,  and  he  often  looked, 
longingly  enough,  at  the  luxuries  served  to  his  tutor. 
The  latter  noticed  it  and  felt  sorry  for  him  ;  but  there 
was  nothing  to  be  done  :  the  royal  orders  were  strict 
and  could  not  be  disobeyed.  One  day,  however,  the 
lesson,  one  of  repetition,  had  gone  so  well  that  in  a 
moment  of  gratitude  the  tutor  decided  to  reward  his 
pupil  at  all  hazards.  The  lunch  appeared,  steaming 
"  perch-in-butter "  for  the  tutor,  and  a  plate  of  bread 


22  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

and  butter  and  some  grapes  for  the  pupil.  The  Prince 
cast  a  glance  at  the  savoury  dish  and  was  then  about 
to  attack  his  frugal  fare  when  the  tutor  suddenly  said, 
"  Prince,  I'm  very  fond  of  grapes.  Can't  we  for  once 

exchange  ?     You  eat  my  perch  and  I "     The  Prince 

joyfully  agreed,  plates  were  exchanged,  and  both  were 
heartily  enjoying  the  meal  when  the  Crown  Prince 
walked  in.  Both  pupil  and  tutor  blushed  a  little,  but 
the  Crown  Prince  said  nothing  and  seemed  pleased  to 
hear  how  well  the  lesson  had  gone  that  day.  At  noon, 
however,  as  the  tutor  was  leaving  the  palace,  a  servant 
stopped  him  and  said,  "  His  Royal  Highness  the  Crown 
Prince  would  like  to  speak  with  the  Herr  Doktor." 

"  Herr  Doktor,"  said  the  Crown  Prince,  "  tell  me  how 
it  was  that  the  Prince  to-day  was  eating  the  warm 
breakfast  and  you  the  cold." 

The  tutor  tried  to  make  as  little  of  the  affair  as  possible. 
It  was  a  joke,  he  said,  he  had  allowed  himself,  he  had 
been  so  well  pleased  with  his  pupil  that  morning. 

"Well,  I  will  pass  it  over  this  time,"  said  the  Crown 
Prince,  "  but  I  must  ask  you  to  let  the  Prince  get  accus- 
tomed to  bear  the  preference  shown  to  his  tutor  and 
allow  him  to  be  satisfied  with  the  simple  food  suitable 
for  his  age.  What  will  he  eat  twenty  years  hence,  if 
he  now  gets  roast  meat  ?  Bread  and  fruit  make  a  whole- 
some and  perfectly  satisfactory  meal  for  a  lad  of  his 
years." 

During  second  breakfast  next  day,  the  Prince  took  care 
not  to  look  up  from  his  plate  of  fruit,  but  when  he  had 
finished,  murmured  as  though  by  way  of  grace,  "  After 
all,  a  fine  bunch  of  grapes  is  a  splendid  lunch,  and  I 
really  think  I  prefer  it,  Herr  Doktor,  to  your  nice- 
smelling  perch-in-butter." 

The  time  had  now  come  when  the  young  Prince  was 
to  leave  the  paternal  castle  and  submit  to  the  discipline 
of  school.  The  parents,  one  may  be  sure,  held  many 


YOUTH  23 

a  conference  on  the  subject.  The  boy  was  beginning 
to  hav^  a  character  of  his  own,  and  his  parents 
doubtless  often  had  in  mind  Goethe's  lines  : — 

"  Denn  wir  konnen  die  Kinder  nach  unserem  Willen  nicht  formen, 
So  wie  Gott  sie  uns  gab,  so  muss  man  sie  lieben  und  haben, 
Sie  erzielen  aufs  best  und  jeglichen  lassen  gewahren." 

("  We  cannot  have  children  according  to  our  will  : 
as  God  gave  them  so  must  we  love  and  keep  them  : 
bring  them  up  as  best  we  can  and  leave  each  to  its  own 
development.") 

It  had  always  been  Hohenzollern  practice  to  educate 
the  Heir  to  the  Throne  privately  until  he  was  of  an  age  to 
go  to  the  university,  but  the  royal  parents  now  decided 
to  make  an  important  departure  from  it  by  sending  their 
boy  to  an  ordinary  public  school  in  some  carefully 
chosen  place.  The  choice  fell  on  Cassel,  a  quiet  and 
beautiful  spot  not  far  from  Wilhelmshohe,  near  Hom- 
burg,  where  there  is  a  Hohenzollern  castle,  and  which 
was  the  scene  of  Napoleon's  temporary  detention  after 
the  capitulation  of  Sedan.  Here  at  the  Gymnasium, 
or  lycee,  founded  by  Frederick  the  Great,  the  boy  was 
to  go  through  the  regular  school  course,  sit  on  the  same 
bench  with  the  sons  of  ordinary  burghers,  and  in  all 
respects  conform  to  the  Gymnasium's  regulations.  The 
decision  to  have  the  lad  taught  for  a  time  in  this  demo- 
cratic fashion  was  probably  due  to  the  influence  of  his 
English  mother,  who  may  have  had  in  mind  the  advan- 
tages of  an  English  public  school.  The  experiment 
proved  in  every  way  successful,  though  it  was  at  the 
time  adversely  criticized  by  some  ultra-patriotic  writers 
in  the  press.  To  the  boy  himself  it  must  have  been 
an  interesting  and  agreeable  novelty.  Hitherto  he  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  company  of  his  brothers  and 
sisters  in  Berlin  or  Potsdam,  with  an  occasional  "  week- 
end" at  the  royal  farm  of  Bornstedt  near  the  latter, 


24  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

the  only  occasions  when  he  was  absent  from  home 
being  sundry  visits  to  the  Grand  Ducal  Court  at 
Karlsruhe,  where  the  Grand  Duchess  was  an  aunt  on 
his  father's  side,  and  to  the  Court  at  Darmstadt, 
where  the  Grand  Duchess  was  an  aunt  on  the  side  of 
his  mother. 

An  important  ceremony,  however,  had  to  be  performed 
before  his  departure  for  school — his  confirmation.  It 
took  place  at  Potsdam  on  September  i,  1874,  amid  a 
brilliant  crowd  of  relatives  and  friends,  and  included  the 
following  formal  declaration  by  the  young  Prince :  "  I 
will,  in  childlike  faith,  be  devoted  to  God  all  the  days  of 
my  life,  put  my  trust  in  Him  and  at  all  times  thank  Him 
for  His  grace.  I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour  and 
Redeemer.  Him  who  first  loved  me  I  will  love  in  return, 
and  will  show  this  love  by  love  to  my  parents,  my  dear 
grandparents,  my  sisters  and  brothers  and  relatives,  but 
also  to  all  men.  I  know  that  hard  tasks  await  me  in  life, 
but  they  will  brace  me  up,  not  overcome  me.  I  will  pray 
to  God  for  strength  and  develop  my  bodily  powers." 

The  boy  and  his  brother  Henry  stayed  in  Cassel  for 
three  years,  in  the  winter  occupying  a  villa  near  the 
Gymnasium  with  Dr.  Hinzpeter,  and  in  summer  living  in 
the  castle  of  Wilhelmshohe  hard  by.  Besides  attending 
the  usual  school  classes,  they  were  instructed  by  private 
tutors  in  dancing,  fencing,  and  music.  Both  pupils  are 
represented  as  having  been  conscientious,  and  as  moving 
among  their  schoolmates  without  affectation  or  any  special 
consciousness  of  their  birth  or  rank.  Many  years  after- 
wards the  Emperor,  when  revisiting  Cassel,  thus  referred 
to  his  schooldays  there  :  "  I  do  not  regret  for  an  instant 
a  time  which  then  seemed  so  hard  to  me,  and  I  can  truly 
say  that  work  and  the  working  life  have  become  to  me  a 
second  nature.  For  this  I  owe  thanks  to  Cassel  soil  ; " 
and  later  in  the  same  speech  :  "  I  am  pleased  to  be  on 
the  ground  where,  directed  by  expert  hands,  I  learned 


YOUTH  25 

that  work  exists  not  only  for  its  own  sake,  but  that  man 
in  work  shall  find  his  entire  joy."  This  is  the  right 
spirit ;  but  if  he  had  said  "  greatest  joy  "  and  "  can  find,'' 
he  would  have  said  something  more  completely  true. 

The  life  at  Cassel  was  simple,  and  the  day  strictly 
divided.  The  future  Emperor  rose  at  six,  winter  and 
summer,  and  after  a  breakfast  of  coffee  and  rolls  re- 
freshed his  memory  of  the  home  repetition-work  learned 
the  previous  evening.  He  then  went  to  the  Gymnasium, 
and  when  his  lessons  there  were  over,  took  a  walk  with 
his  tutor  before  lunch.  Home  tasks  followed,  and  on 
certain  days  private  instruction  was  received  in  English, 
French,  and  drawing.  His  English  and  French  became 
all  but  faultless,  and  he  learned  to  draw  in  rough-and- 
ready,  if  not  professionally  expert  fashion.  Wednesdays 
and  Saturdays,  which  were  half-holidays,  were  spent 
roving  in  the  country,  especially  in  the  forest,  with  two 
or  three  companions  of  his  own  age.  In  winter  there 
was  skating  on  the  ponds.  The  Sunday  dinner  was  a 
formal  affair,  at  which  royal  relatives,  who  doubtless 
came  to  see  how  the  princes  were  getting  on,  and  high 
officials  from  Berlin,  were  usually  present.  After  dinner 
the  princes  took  young  friends  up  to  their  private  rooms 
and  played  charades,  in  which  on  occasion  they  amused 
themselves  with  the  ever-delightful  sport  of  taking  off 
and  satirizing  their  instructors.  At  this  time  the  future 
Emperor's  favourite  subjects  were  history  and  literature, 
and  he  was  fond  of  displaying  his  rhetorical  talent  before 
the  class.  The  classical  authors  of  his  choice  were 
Homer,  Sophocles,  and  Horace.  Homer  particularly 
attracted  him  ;  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  conviction  with 
which,  as  a  Hohenzollern,  he  would  deliver  the  declara- 
tion of  King  Agamemnon  to  Achilles  : — 

"  And  hence,  to  all  the  host  it  shall  be  known 
That  kings  are  subject  to  the  gods  alone." 


26  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

The  young  Prince  left  Cassel  in  January,  1877, 
passing  the  exit  (abiturient)  examination,  a  rather  severe 
test,  twelfth  in  a  class  of  seventeen.  The  result  of  the 
examination  was  officially  described  as  "  satisfactory," 
the  term  used  for  those  who  were  second  in  degree  of 
merit.  On  leaving  he  was  awarded  a  gold  medal  for 
good  conduct,  one  of  three  annually  presented  by  a 
patron  of  the  Gymnasium. 

A  foreign  resident  in  Germany,  who  saw  the  young 
Prince  at  this  time,  tells  of  an  incident  which  refers  to 
the  lad's  appearance,  and  shows  that  even  at  that  early 
date  anti-English  feeling  existed  among  the  people.  It 
was  at  the  military  manoeuvres  at  Stettin  :  "  Then  the  old 
Emperor  came  by.  Tremendous  cheers.  Then  Bismarck 
and  Moltke.  Great  acclaim.  Then  passed  in  a  carriage  a 
thin,  weakly-looking  youth,  and  people  in  the  crowd  said, 
'  Look  at  that  boy  who  is  to  be  our  future  Emperor — 
his  good  German  blood  has  been  ruined  by  his  English 
training. ' " 

Before  closing  the  Emperor's  record  as  a  schoolboy  it 
will  be  of  interest  to  learn  the  opinion  of  him  formed  by 
his  French  tutor  at  Cassel,  Monsieur  Ayme,  who  has 
published  a  small  volume  on  the  education  of  his  pupil, 
and  who,  though  evidently  not  too  well  satisfied  with  his 
remuneration  of  £j  IDS.  a  month,  or  with  being  required 
to  pay  his  own  fare  back  from  Germany  to  France, 
writes  favourably  of  the  young  princes.  "  The  life  of 
these  young  people  (Prince  William  and  Prince  Henry) 
was,"  he  says, "  the  most  studious  and  peaceful  imagin- 
able. Up  at  six  in  the  morning,  they  prepared  their  tasks 
until  it  was  time  to  go  to  school.  Lunch  was  at  noon 
and  tea  at  five.  They  went  to  bed  at  nine  or  half-past. 
All  their  hours  of  leisure  were  divided  between  lessons  in 
French,  English,  music,  pistol-shooting,  equitation,  and 
walking.  Now  and  then  they  were  allowed  to  play  with 
boys  of  their  own  age,  and  on  fete  days  and  their  parents' 


YOUTH  27 

birth-anniversaries  they  had  the  privilege  of  choosing  a 
play  and  seeing  it  performed  at  the  theatre.  As  pocket- 
money  Prince  William  received  205.  a  month,  and  Henry 
IQS.  Out  of  these  modest  sums  they  had  to  buy  their 
own  notepaper  and  little  presents  for  the  servants  or  their 
favourite  companions." 

As  to  Prince  William's  character  as  a  schoolboy, 
Monsieur  Ayme  writes  :  "  I  do  not  suppose  William  was 
ever  punished  while  he  was  in  Cassel.  He  was  too 
proud  to  draw  down  upon  himself  criticism,  to  him  the 
worst  form  of  punishment.  At  the  castle,  as  at  school, 
he  made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  act  and  work  as  if  he  had 
made  his  plans  and  resolved  to  stick  to  them.  He  was 
always  among  the  first  of  his  class,  and  as  for  me  I  never 
had  any  need  to  urge  him  on.  If  I  pointed  out  to  him 
an  error  in  his  task  he  began  it  over  again  of  his  own 
accord.  We  did  grammar,  analysis,  dictations,  and 
compositions,  and  he  got  over  his  difficulties  by  sheer 
perseverance.  For  example,  if  he  was  reading  a  fine 
page  of  Victor  Hugo,  or  the  like,  he  hated  to  be  inter- 
rupted, so  deeply  was  he  interested  in  the  subject  he  was 
reading.  Style  and  poetry  had  a  great  effect  upon  him  ; 
he  expressed  admiration  for  the  form  and  was  aroused  to 
enthusiasm  by  generous  or  noble  ideas.  Frederick  the 
Great  was  the  hero  of  his  choice,  a  model  of  which  he 
never  ceased  dreaming,  and  which,  like  his  grandfather, 
he  proposed  as  his  own.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  that  after 
ten  or  twelve  years  of  such  study,  regularly  and  methodi- 
cally pursued,  the  Prince  must  have  possessed  a  literary 
and  scientific  baggage  more  varied  and  extensive  than 
that  of  his  companions.  And  he  worked  hard  for  it, 
few  lads  so  hard.  To  speak  the  truth,  he  was  much 
more  disciplined  and  much  more  deprived  of  freedom 
and  recreation  of  all  sorts  than  most  children  of  his 
age." 

Par  parenthhe  may  be  introduced  here  a  reference  to 


28  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Prince  Henry,  of  whom  Monsieur  Ayme  writes  less 
enthusiastically. 

"  One  day,"  the  tutor  writes,  "  I  was  dictating  to  him 
something  in  which  mention  of  a  queen  occurs.  I  came 
to  the  words  ' ...  in  addition  to  her  natural  distinction 
she  possessed  that  august  majesty  which  is  the  appanage 
of  princesses  of  the  blood  royal.  .  .  .' 

"  Prince  Henry  laid  down  his  pen  and  remarked, 
'The  author  who  wrote  this  piece  did  not  live  much 
with  queens.' 

"  '  Why  ? '  I  asked. 

"  '  Because  I  never  observed  the  august  majesty  which 
attaches  to  princesses  of  the  blood  royal,  and  yet  I  have 
been  brought  up  among  them,'  was  the  reply. 

"William,  however,"  continues  Monsieur  Ayme,  " was 
the  thinker,  prudent  and  circumspect  ;  the  wise  head 
which  knew  that  it  was  not  all  truths  which  bear  telling. 
He  was  not  less  loyal  and  constant  in  his  opinions.  He 
admired  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  declaration  con- 
tained in  '  The  Rights  of  Man/  though  this  did  not  prevent 
his  declaiming  against  the  Terrorists." 

One  incident  in  particular  must  have  appealed  to  the 
French  tutor.  Monsieur  Ayme  and  his  Prussian  pupil 
one  day  began  discussing  the  delicate  question  of  the 
war  of  1870.  In  the  course  of  the  discussion  both  parties 
lost  their  tempers,  until  at  last  Prince  William  suddenly 
got  up  and  left  the  room.  He  remained  silent  and 
"  huffed"  for  some  days,  but  at  last  he  took  the  French- 
man aside  and  made  him  a  formal  apology.  "  I  am  very 
sorry  indeed,"  he  said,  "that  you  took  seriously  my 
conduct  of  the  other  day.  I  meant  nothing  by  it,  and  I 
regret  it  hurt  you.  I  am  all  the  more  sorry,  because  I 
offended  in  your  case  a  sentiment  which  I  respect  above 
any  in  the  world,  the  love  of  country." 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  from  the  details  of  the  Emperor's 
early  youth,  and  observe  him  during  the  two  years  he 


YOUTH  29 

spent,  with  interruptions,  at  the  university.  From  Cassel 
he  went  immediately  to  Bonn,  where,  as  during  the  years 
of  military  duty  which  followed,  we  only  catch  glimpses 
of  him  as  he  lived  the  ordinary,  and  by  no  means 
austere,  life  of  the  university  student  and  soldier  of  the 
time ;  that  is  to  say,  the  ordinary  life  with  considerable 
modifications  and  exceptions.  He  did  not,  like  young 
Bismarck,  drink  huge  flagons  of  beer  at  a  sitting,  day 
after  day.  He  was  not  followed  everywhere  by  a  boar- 
hound.  He  fought  no  student's  duels — though  a  secret 
performance  of  the  kind  is  mentioned  as  a  probability 
in  the  chronicles — or  go  about  looking  for  trouble  gene- 
rally as  the  swashbuckling  Junker,  Bismarck,  did  ;  for  in 
the  first  place  his  royal  rank  would  not  allow  of  his 
taking  part  in  the  bloody  amusement  of  the  Mensur,  and 
his  natural  disposition,  if  it  was  quick  and  lively,  was 
not  choleric  enough  to  involve  him  in  serious  quarrel. 
His  studies  were  to  some  extent  interrupted  by  military 
calls  to  Berlin,  for  after  being  appointed  second  lieu- 
tenant in  the  First  Regiment  of  Foot  Guards  at  Potsdam 
on  his  tenth  birthday,  the  Hohenzollern  age  for  entering 
the  army,  he  was  promoted  to  first  lieutenant  in  the 
same  regiment  on  leaving  Cassel. 

For  the  most  part  the  university  lectures  he  attended 
were  the  courses  in  law  and  philosophy,  and  he  is  not 
reported  to  have  shown  any  particular  enthusiasm  for 
either  subject.  The  differences  between  an  English  and 
a  German  university  are  of  a  fundamental  kind,  perhaps 
the  greatest  being  that  the  German  university  does  not 
aim  at  influencing  conduct  and  character  in  the  same 
measure  as  the  English,  but  is  rather  for  the  supply  of 
knowledge  of  all  sorts,  as  a  monster  warehouse  is  for  the 
supply  of  miscellaneous  goods.  Again,  the  German 
university,  which,  like  all  American  universities  except 
Princetown,  has  more  resemblance  to  the  Scottish  uni- 
versities than  to  those  at  Oxford,  Cambridge,  or  Dublin, 


30  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

is  not  residential  nor  divided  into  colleges,  but  is  depart- 
mentalized into  "  faculties,"  each  with  its  own  professors 
and  privat  docentes,  or  official  lecturers,  mostly  young 
savants,  who  have  not  the  rank  or  title  of  professor,  but 
have  obtained  only  the  venia  legendi  from  the  university. 
The  lectures,  as  a  rule  of  admirable  learning  and 
thoroughness,  invariably  laying  great  and  prosy  stress 
on  "  development,"  are  delivered  in  large  halls  and  may 
be  subscribed  for  in  as  many  faculties  as  the  student 
chooses,  the  cost  being  about  thirty  shillings  or  there- 
abouts per  term  for  each  lecture  "  heard."  Outside  the 
university  the  student  enjoys  complete  independence, 
which  is  a  privilege  highly  (and  sometimes  violently) 
cherished,  especially  by  non-studious  undergraduates, 
under  the  name  "  academic  freedom."  The  German 
preparing  for  one  or  other  of  the  learned  professions 
will  probably  spend  a  year  or  two  at  each  of  three,  or 
maybe  four,  universities,  according  to  the  special  faculty 
he  adopts  and  for  which  the  university  has  a  reputation. 
There  are  plenty  of  hard-working  students  of  course  ; 
nowadays  probably  the  great  majority  are  of  this  kind ; 
but  to  a  large  proportion  also  the  university  period  is  still 
a  pleasant,  free,  and  easy  halting-place  between  the  severe 
discipline  and  work  of  the  school  and  the  stern  struggle 
of  the  working  world. 

The  social  life  of  the  English  university  is  paralleled  in 
Germany  by  associations  of  students  in  student  "  Corps," 
with  theatrical  uniforms  for  their  Chargierte  or  officers, 
special  caps,  sometimes  of  extraordinary  shape,  swords, 
leather  gauntlets,  Wellington  boots,  and  other  distinguish- 
ing gaudy  insignia.  The  Corps  are  more  or  less  select, 
the  most  exclusive  of  all  being  the  Corps  Borussia, 
which  at  every  university  only  admits  members  of  an 
upper  class  of  society,  though  on  rare  occasions  receiving 
in  its  ranks  an  exceptionally  aristocratic,  popular,  or 
wealthy  foreigner.  To  this  Corps,  the  name  of  which  is 


YOUTH  31 

the  old  form  of  "  Prussia,"  the  Emperor  belonged  when 
at  Bonn,  and  in  one  or  two  of  his  speeches  he  has  since 
spoken  of  the  agreeable  memories  he  retains  in  connexion 
with  it  and  the  practices  observed  by  it. 

Common  to  all  university  associations  in  Germany — 
whether  Corps,  Landsmannschaft,  Burschenschaft,  or 
Turnerschaft — is  the  practice  of  the  Mensnr,  or  student 
duel.  It  is  not  a  duel  in  the  sense  usually  given  to  the 
word  in  England,  for  it  lacks  the  feature  of  personal 
hostility,  hate,  or  injury,  but  is  a  particularly  sanguinary 
form  of  the  English  "  single-stick,"  in  which  swords  take 
the  place  of  sticks.  These  swords  (Schldger),  called, 
curiously  enough,  rapierc,  are  long  and  thin  in  the  blade, 
and  their  weight  is  such  that  at  every  duel  students  are 
told  off  on  whose  shoulders  the  combatants  can  rest  their 
outstretched  sword-arm  in  the  pauses  of  the  combat 
caused  by  the  duellists  getting  out  of  breath  ;  conse 
quently,  an  undersized  student  is  usually  chosen  for 
this  considerate  office.  The  heads  and  faces  of  the 
duellists  are  swathed  in  bandages — no  small  incentive  to 
perspiration,  the  vital  parts  of  their  bodies  are  well  pro- 
tected against  a  fatal  prick  or  blow,  and  the  pricks  or 
slashes  must  be  delivered  with  the  hand  and  wrist  raised 
head-high  above  the  shoulder.  It  is  considered  disgrace- 
ful to  move  the  head,  to  shrink  in  the  smallest  degree 
before  the  adversary,  or  even  to  show  feeling  when  the 
medical  student  who  acts  as  surgeon  in  an  adjoining 
room  staunches  the  flow  of  blood  or  sews  up  the  scars 
caused  by  the  swords.  The  duel  of  a  more  serious  kind 
— that  with  pistols  or  the  French  rapier,  or  with  the  bare- 
pointed  sabre  and  unprotected  bodies — is  punishable  by 
law,  and  is  growing  rarer  each  year. 

Take  a  sabre  duel — "  heavy  sabre  duel  "  is  the  German 
name  for  it — arising  out  of  a  quarrel  in  a  cafe  or  beer- 
house, and  in  which  one  of  the  opponents  may  be  a 
foreigner  affiliated  to  some  Corps  or  Burschenschaft. 


32  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Cards  are  exchanged,  and  the  challenger  chooses  a  second 
whom  he  sends  to  the  opponent.  The  latter,  if  he  accepts 
the  challenge,  also  appoints  a  second  ;  the  seconds  then 
meet  and  arrange  for  the  holding  of  a  court  of  honour. 
The  court  will  probably  consist  of  old  Corps  students — 
a  lawyer,  a  doctor,  and  two  or  three  other  members  of 
the  Corps  or  Burschenschaft.  The  court  summons  the 
opponents  before  it  and  hears  their  account  of  the 
quarrel ;  the  seconds  produce  evidence,  for  example 
the  bills  at  the  cafe  or  beer-hall,  showing  how  much 
liquor  has  been  consumed ;  also  as  to  age,  marriage  or 
otherwise,  and  so  on.  Then  the  court  decides  whether 
there  shall  be  a  duel,  or  not,  and  if  so,  in  what  form  it 
shall  be  fought. 

The  duel  may  be  fixed  to  take  place  at  any  time  within 
six  months,  and  meanwhile  the  opponents  industriously 
practise.  The  scene  of  the  duel  is  usually  the  back  room 
of  some  beer-hall,  with  locked  doors  between  the  duellists 
and  the  police.  The  latter  know  very  well  what  is  going 
on,  but  shut  their  eyes  to  it.  The  opponents  take  their 
places  at  about  a  yard  and  a  half  distance  from  advanced 
foot  to  advanced  foot,  and  a  chalk  line  is  drawn  between 
them.  Close  behind  each  opponent  is  his  second  with 
outstretched  sword,  ready  to  knock  up  the  duellists' 
weapons  in  case  of  too  dangerous  an  impetuosity  in  the 
onset.  The  umpire  (Unparteiischer),  unarmed,  stands  a 
little  distance  from  the  duellists.  The  latter  are  naked  to 
the  waist,  but  wear  a  leather  apron  like  that  of  a  dray- 
man, covering  the  lower  half  of  the  chest,  and  another 
piece  of  leather,  like  a  stock,  protecting  their  necks  and 
jugular  veins.  The  duel  may  last  a  couple  of  hours,  and 
any  number  of  rounds  up  to  as  many  as  two  hundred 
may  be  fought.  The  rounds  consist  of  three  or  four 
blows,  and  last  about  twenty  seconds  each,  when  the 
seconds,  who  have  been  watching  behind  their  men  in 
the  attitude  of  a  wicket-keeper,  with  their  sword-points 


YOUTH  33 

on  the  ground,  jump  in  and  knock  up  the  duellists' 
weapons.  When  one  duellist  is  disabled  by  skin  wounds 
— there  are  rarely  any  others — or  by  want  of  breath, 
palpitation  or  the  like,  the  duel  is  over,  and  the  duellists 
shake  hands.  This  description,  with  some  slight  modi- 
fications, applies  to  the  ordinary  Corps  Mensuren, 
which  are  simply  a  bloody  species  of  gymnastic 
exercise. 

On  one  occasion  early  in  the  reign  the  Emperor  spoke 
of  the  Corps  system  with  great  enthusiasm,  and  especially 
endorsed  the  practice  of  the  Mensur.  "  I  am  quite  con- 
vinced," he  said  at  Bonn  in  1891,  three  years  after  his 
accession,  "that  every  young  man  who  enters  a  Corps 
receives  through  the  spirit  which  rules  in  it,  and  sup- 
posing he  imbibes  the  spirit,  his  true  directive  in  life. 
For  it  is  the  best  education  for  later  life  a  young  man 
can  obtain.  Whoever  pokes  fun  at  the  German  student 
Corps  is  ignorant  of  its  true  tendency,  and  I  hope  that  so 
long  as  student  Corps  exist  the  spirit  which  is  fostered 
in  them,  and  which  inspires  strength  and  courage,  will 
continue,  and  that  for  all  time  the  student  will  joyfully 
wield  the  Schlager." 

Regarding  the  Mensur,  he  went  on  :  "Our  Mensuren 
are  frequently  misunderstood  by  the  public,  but  that 
must  not  let  us  be  deceived.  We  who  have  been  Corps 
students,  as  I  myself  was,  know  better.  As  in  the  Middle 
Ages  through  our  gymnastic  exercises  (Turniere)  the 
courage  and  strength  of  the  man  was  steeled,  so  by 
means  of  the  Corps  spirit  and  Corps  life  is  that  measure 
of  firmness  acquired  which  is  necessary  in  later  life,  and 
which  will  continue  to  exist  as  long  as  there  are  universi- 
ties in  Germany."  The  word  for  firmness  used  by  the 
Emperor  was  Festigkeit,  which  may  also  be  translated 
determination,  steadiness,  fortitude,  or  resoluteness  of 
character.  It  may  be  that  practice  of  the  Mensur,  which 
is  held  almost  weekly,  has  a  lifelong  influence  on  the 


34  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

German  student's  character.  It  probably  enables  him  to 
look  the  adversary  in  the  eye — look  "hard"  at  him,  as 
the  mariners  in  Mr.  A.  W.  Jacobs's  delightful  tales  look 
at  one  another  when  some  particularly  ingenious  lie  is 
being  produced.  In  a  way,  moreover,  it  may  be  said  to 
correspond  to  boxing  in  English  universities,  schools, 
and  gymnasia.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
spectator  finds  it  difficult  to  understand  how  it  can 
exercise  any  influence  for  good  on  the  moral  character 
of  a  youth,  or  determine,  as  the  Emperor  says  it  does,  a 
disposition  which  is  cowardly  or  weak  by  nature  to 
bravery  or  strength,  save  of  a  momentary  and  merely 
physical  kind.  The  Englishman  who  has  been  present 
at  a  Mensur  is  rather  inclined  to  think  the  atmosphere  too 
much  that  of  a  shambles,  and  the  chief  result  of  the 
practice  the  cultivation  of  braggadocio. 

Besides,  the  practice  is  illegal,  and  though  purposely 
overlooked,  save  in  one  German  city,  that  of  Leipzig, 
where  it  is  punished  with  some  rigour,  the  Emperor, 
who  is  supposed  to  embody  the  majesty  and  effectiveness 
of  the  law,  is  hardly  the  person  to  recommend  it.  His 
inconsistency  in  the  matter  on  one  occasion  placed  him 
in  an  undignified  position.  Two  officers  of  the  army 
quarrelled,  and  one,  an  infantry  lieutenant,  sent  a  challenge 
to  the  other,  an  army  medical  man.  The  latter  refused 
on  conscientious  grounds,  whereupon  he  was  called  on 
by  a  military  court  of  honour  to  send  in  his  resignation. 
The  case  was  sent  up  to  the  Emperor,  who  upheld  the 
decision  of  the  court  of  honour,  adding  the  remark  that 
if  the  surgeon  had  conscientious  scruples  on  the  point  he 
should  not  remain  in  the  army.  An  irate  Social  Demo- 
cratic editor  thereupon  pointed  out  that  such  a  decision 
came  with  a  bad  grace  from  a  man  with  whom,  or  with 
any  of  whose  six  sons,  no  one  was  allowed  to  fight.  The 
Emperor  is  still  a  member  of  the  Borussia  Corps,  but 
chiefly  shows  his  interest  by  keeping  its  anniversaries  in 


YOUTH  35 

mind,  by  every  few  years  attending  one  of  its  annual 
drinking  festivals  (Coinmers),  and  by  paying  a  substantial 
yearly  subscription. 

The  German  student  Corps,  historically,  go  back  to 
the  fourteenth  century,  when  the  first  European  universi- 
ties were  established  at  Bologna,  Paris,  and  Orleans. 
Universities  then  were  not  so  called  from  the  universality 
of  their  teachings,  but  rather  as  meaning  a  corporation, 
confraternity,  or  collegium,  and  were  in  reality  social 
centres  in  the  towns  where  they  were  instituted.  The 
most  renowned  was  that  of  Paris,  and  here  was  founded 
the  first  student  Corps.  It  was  called  the  "  German 
Nation  of  Paris,"  a  corporation  of  students,  with  statutes, 
oaths,  special  costumes,  and  other  distinctive  features. 
At  first,  strange  to  say,  it  contained  more  Englishmen 
than  Germans.  The  "  Nation "  had  a  procurator,  a 
treasurer,  and  a  bedell,  the  last  to  look  after  the  legal 
affairs  of  the  association.  Drinking  was  not  the  sup- 
posed purpose  of  the  society,  but  the  Corps  mostly 
assembled,  as  German  Corps  do  to-day,  for  drinking 
purposes. 

The  earliest  form  of  German  student  associations  was 
the  Landsmannschaft.  To  this  society,  composed  of 
elders  and  juniors,  new-comers,  called  Pennales,  were 
admitted  after  painful  ceremonies  and  became  something 
like  the  "  fags  "  at  an  English  public  school.  The  object 
of  the  original  Landsmannschaft  was  to  keep  alive  the 
spirit  of  nationality.  The  object  of  the  German  Corps  is 
different.  It  is  to  beget  and  perpetuate  friendship,  and 
this  accounts  for  the  steady  goodwill  the  Emperor  has 
always  shown  towards  the  comrades  of  his  Bonn  and 
Borussia  days. 

An  ancient  form  of  Corps  entertainment  is  called  the 
Hospiz,  now,  however,  much  modified.  Upon  invitation 
the  members  of  the  Corps  meet  in  a  beer-hall  or  in  the 
rooms  of  one  of  the  Corps.  The  president  is  seated 


36  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

with  a  house-key  on  the  table  before  him  as  a  symbol 
of  unfettered  authority.  As  members  arrive,  the  president 
takes  away  their  sticks  and  swords  and  deposits  them  in 
a  closet.  The  guests  sit  down  and  are  handed  filled  pipes 
and  a  lighted  fidibus,  or  pipe-lighter.  Bread  and  butter 
and  cheese,  followed  by  coffee,  are  offered.  After  this, 
the  real  work  of  the  evening  begins — the  drinking.  A 
large  can  of  beer  stands  on  a  stool  beside  the  president. 
The  latter  calls  for  silence  by  rapping  three  times  on  the 
table  with  the  house-key,  and  the  Hospiz  is  declared 
open.  Thenceforward  only  the  president  pours  out  the 
beer,  unless  he  appoints  a  deputy  during  his  absence. 
The  president's  great  aim  and  honour  is  to  make  every 
one,  including  himself,  intoxicated.  He  begins  by  rapping 
the  table  with  his  glass  and  saying  "  Significat  ein  Glas." 
In  response  all  drain  their  glasses.  Then  comes  a  "  health 
to  all,"  and  this  is  followed  by  a  "  health  to  each."  "  The 
Ladies  "  follow,  including  toasts  to  the  pretty  girls  of  the 
town,  and  ladies  known  to  be  favourites  of  those  present. 
Married  ladies  or  women  of  bad  reputation  must  not 
be  toasted  in  the  Hospiz. 

A  story  is  told  of  a  toast  the  Emperor,  in  these  his 
Lohengrin  days,  once  proposed  at  a  Borussia  meeting. 
"  On  the  Kreuzberg "  (a  hill  near  Bonn),  he  said,  "  I 
saw  a  picture,  the  ideal  of  a  German  woman.  She 
united  in  herself  beauty  of  face  and  an  imposing  form, 
the  roses  in  her  cheeks  spoke  of  the  modesty  peculiar 
to  our  maids,  and  her  voice  sounded  harmoniously  like 
the  lute  of  the  Minnesingers  on  the  Wartburg.  She  told 
me  her  name — may  it  be  blessed."  The  toast  found 
its  way  into  the  local  papers  and  gave  birth  to  a  romantic 
legend  connecting  the  future  Emperor  with  a  pretty  and 
modest  girl  of  the  town,  but  no  true  basis  for  it  has  ever 
been  discovered. 

In  toasting  the  Ladies  in  a  Hospiz  each  of  those 
present  may  name  the  lady  of  his  choice,  and  if  two 


YOUTH  37 

name  the  same  lady  they  have  a  drinking  bout  to  deter- 
mine which  is  entitled  to  claim  her.  The  one  who  first 
admits  that  he  can  drink  no  more — usually  signified 
by  a  hasty  and  zigzag  retreat  from  the  room — is 
declared  the  loser.  If  a  guest  comes  late  to  the  Hospiz 
he  must  drink  fast  so  as  to  catch  up  with  earlier  arrivals, 
unless  he  has  been  drinking  elsewhere,  when  he  is  let 
off  with  drinking  a  "general  health." 

The  close  of  the  Emperor's  student  days  was  marked 
by  an  event  which  was  to  have  a  great  influence  on  his 
life  and  happiness.  It  was  in  1879  that  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  young  lady  who  was,  a  couple  of 
years  later,  to  become  his  wife,  and  subsequently  Empress. 
When  at  Bonn  Prince  William  had  developed  a  liking 
for  wild-game  shooting,  and  accepted  an  invitation  from 
Duke  Frederick  of  Schleswig-Holstein  to  shoot  pheasants 
at  Primkenau  Castle,  the  Duke's  seat  in  Silesia.  More 
than  one  romantic  story  is  current  about  the  first  meeting 
of  the  lovers,  but  that  most  generally  credited,  as  it  was 
published  at  or  near  the  time,  represents  the  young 
sportsman  as  meeting  the  lady  accidentally  in  the  garden 
of  the  castle.  He  had  arrived  at  night  and  gone  shooting 
early  next  morning  before  being  introduced  to  the  family 
of  his  host,  and  on  his  return  surprised  the  fair-haired  and 
blue-eyed  Princess  Auguste  Victoria  as  she  lay  dozing 
in  a  hammock  in  the  garden.  The  student  approached, 
the  words  "  little  Rosebud  "  on  his  lips,  but  hastily  with- 
drew as  the  Princess,  all  blushes,  awoke.  The  pair  met 
shortly  afterwards  at  breakfast,  when  the  visitor  learned 
who  the  "  little  rosebud  "  was  whom  he  had  surprised. 
The  Princess  was  then  twenty-two,  but  looked  much 
younger,  a  privilege  from  nature  she  still  possesses  in 
middle  age.  The  impression  made  on  the  student  was 
deep  and  lasting,  and  the  engagement  was  announced 
on  Valentine's  Day,  in  February,  1880.  The  marriage 
was  celebrated  on  February  27th  of  the  following  year 


38  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

at  the  royal  palace  in  Berlin.  Great  popular  rejoicing 
marked  the  happy  occasion,  Berlin  was  gaily  flagged  to 
celebrate  the  formal  entrance  of  the  bride  into  the 
capital,  and  most  other  German  cities  illuminated  in  her 
honour.  The  imperial  bridegroom  came  from  Potsdam 
at  the  head  of  a  military  escort  selected  from  his  regiment 
and  preceded  the  bridal  cortege,  in  which  the  ancient 
coronation  carriage,  with  its  smiling  occupant,  and  drawn 
by  eight  prancing  steeds,  was  the  principal  feature.  On 
the  day  following  the  marriage  the  young  couple  went 
to  Primkenau  for  the  honeymoon. 

The  marriage  with  a  princess  of  Schleswig-Holstein 
was  not  only  an  event  of  general  interest  from  the 
domestic  and  dynastic  point  of  view.  It  had  also  poli- 
tical significance,  for  it  meant  the  happy  close  of  the 
troubled  period  of  Prussian  dealings  with  those  conquered 
territories. 

A  story  throwing  light  on  the  young  bride's  character 
is  current  in  connexion  with  her  wedding.  One  of  the 
hymns  contained  a  strophe — "  Should  misfortune  come 
upon  us,"  which  her  friends  wanted  her  to  have  omitted 
as  striking  too  melancholy  a  note.  "  No,"  she  said,  "  let 
it  be  sung.  I  don't  expect  my  new  position  to  be  always 
a  bed  of  roses.  Prince  William  is  of  the  same  mind, 
and  we  have  both  determined  to  bear  everything  in 
common,  and  thus  make  what  is  unpleasant  more 
endurable." 

Since  the  marriage  their  domestic  felicity,  as  all  the 
world  is  aware,  has  never  been  troubled,  and  the  example 
thus  given  to  their  subjects  is  one  of  the  surest  founda- 
tions of  their  influence  and  authority  in  Germany.  The 
secret  of  this  felicity,  affection  apart,  is  to  be  sought  for 
in  the  strong  moral  sense  of  the  Emperor  regarding  what 
he  owes  to  himself  and  his  people,  but  no  less  perhaps  in 
the  exemplary  character  of  the  Empress.  As  a  girl  at 
Primkenau  she  was  a  sort  of  Lady  Bountiful  to  the  aged 


YOUTH  39 

and  sick  on  the  estate,  and  led  there  the  simple  life  of  the 
German  country  maiden  of  the  time.  It  was  not  the  day 
of  electric  light  and  central  heating  and  the  telephone  ; 
hardly  of  lawn  tennis,  certainly  not  of  golf  and  hockey  ; 
while  motor-cars  and  militant  suffragettes  were  alike 
unknown.  Instead  of  these  delights  the  Princess, 
as  she  then  was,  was  content  with  the  humdrum  life 
of  a  German  country  mansion,  with  rare  excursions 
into  the  great  world  beyond  the  park  gates,  with  her 
religious  observances,  her  books,  her  needlework,  her 
plants  and  flowers,  and  her  share  in  the  management  of 
the  castle. 

These  domestic  tastes  she  has  preserved,  and  the  saying, 
quoted  in  Germany  whenever  she  is  the  subject  of  con- 
versation, that  her  character  and  tastes  are  summed 
up  in  the  four  words  Kaiser,  Kinder,  Kirche,  and  Ktiche — 
Emperor,  children,  church,  and  kitchen — is  as  true  as  it 
is  compendious  and  alliterative.  It  is  often  assumed, 
especially  by  men,  that  a  woman  who  cultivates  these 
tastes  cultivates  no  other.  This  is  not  as  true  as  is  often 
supposed  of  the  Empress,  as  a  journal  of  her  voyage  to 
Jerusalem  in  1898,  published  on  her  return  to  Germany, 
goes  to  show.  Following  the  traditions  and  example  of 
the  queens  and  empresses  who  have  preceded  her,  she 
has  always  given  liberally  of  her  time  and  care,  as  she 
still  does,  to  the  most  multifarious  forms  of  charity.  She 
has  a  great  and  intelligible  pride  in  her  clever  and  ener- 
getic husband,  while  her  interest  in  her  children  is  pro- 
verbial. She  appears  to  have  no  ambition  to  exercise 
any  influence  on  politics  or  to  shine  as  a  leader  of  society. 
Like  the  Emperor,  she  is  not  without  a  sense  of  humour, 
and  is  always  amused  by  the  racy  Irish  stories  (in  dialect) 
told  her  and  a  little  circle  of  guests  by  Dr.  Mahaffy,  of 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  who  is  a  welcome  guest  at  the 
palace. 

The  offspring  of  the  marriage,  it  may  be  here  noted,  is 


40  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

a  family  of  seven  children — six  sons  and  a  daughter — as 
follows  : — 

Crown  Prince  Frederick  William,  born  1882 
Prince  Eitel  Frederick  1883 


Prince  Adalbert 
Prince  August  William 
Prince  Oscar 
Prince  Joachim 
Princess  Victoria  Louise 


1884 
1887 
1888 
1890 
1802 


The  Crown  Prince  was  born  on  June  6th  at  the  Marble 
Palace  in  Potsdam.  He  was  educated  at  first  privately 
by  tutors,  and  later  at  the  military  academy  at  Plon,  not 
far  from  Kiel.  When  eighteen  he  became  of  age  and 
began  his  active  career  as  an  officer  in  the  army.  He  is. 
now  commander  of  the  First  Regiment  of  Body  Guards 
("Death's  Head"  Hussars)  at  Langfuhr,  near  Danzig, 
with  the  rank  of  major.  He  was  married  in  June,  1905, 
to  Cecilie,  Duchess  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  and  is  the 
father  of  four  children,  all  boys.  The  Crown  Princess 
is  one  of  the  cleverest,  most  popular,  and  most  charming 
characters  in  Germany,  of  the  brightest  intelligence  and 
the  most  unaffected  manners.  The  leading  trait  in  the 
Crown  Prince's  character  is  his  love  of  sport,  from  big- 
game  shooting  (on  which  he  has  written  a  book)  to  lawn 
tennis.  In  May  last  he  began  to  learn  golf.  He  is 
personally  amiable,  has  pleasant  manners,  and  is 
highly  popular  with  all  classes  of  his  future  subjects. 
He  is  credited  with  ability,  but  is  not  believed  to  have 
inherited  the  intellectual  manysidedness  of  his  father. 
The  only  part  he  can  be  said  to  have  taken  in  public  life 
as  yet  is  having  called  the  imperial  attention  to  the 
Maximilian  Harden  allegations  regarding  Count  Eulen- 
burg  and  a  court  "camarilla,"  referred  to  later,  and 
having,  while  sitting  in  a  gallery  of  the  Reichstag,  demon- 
strated by  decidedly  marked  gestures  his  disagreement 
with  the  Government's  Morocco  policy. 


YOUTH  41 

Since  his  marriage  the  Emperor  has  more  than  once 
publicly  congratulated  himself  on  his  good  fortune  in 
having  such  a  consort  as  the  Empress.  The  most  grace- 
ful compliment  he  paid  her  was  in  her  own  Province  of 
Silesia,  in  1890,  when  he  said  :  "The  band  which  unites 
me  with  the  Province — that  of  all  the  provinces  of  the 
Empire  which  is  nearest  to  my  heart — is  the  jewel  which 
sparkles  at  my  side,  Her  Majesty  the  Empress.  A  native 
of  this  country,  a  model  of  all  the  virtues  of  a  German 
princess,  it  is  her  I  have  to  thank  that  I  am  in  a  position 
joyfully  to  perform  the  onerous  duties  of  my  office." 
Only  the  other  day  at  Altona,  after  thirty  years  of  married 
life,  he  referred  to  her,  again  in  her  home  Province  and 
again  as  she  sat  smiling  beside  him,  as  the  "first  lady 
of  the  land,  who  is  always  ready  to  help  the  needy,  to 
strengthen  family  ties,  to  discharge  the  duties  of  her  sex, 
and  suggest  to  it  new  aims.  The  Empress  has  bestowed 
a  home  life  on  the  House  of  Hohenzollern  such  as  Queen 
Louise,  alone  perhaps,  conferred."  Queen  Louise,  the 
famous  wife  of  Frederick  William  III,  died  in  1810 
and  is  buried  in  the  mausoleum  at  Charlottenburg,  the 
suburb  of  Berlin.  She  has  remained  ever  since,  for  the 
German  nation,  the  type  of  womanly  perfection. 


Ill 

PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS 

1881-1887 

THE  seven  years  between  the  date  of  his  marriage 
and  that  of  his  accession  were  chiefly  filled  in  by 
the  future   Emperor  with   the   conscientious  dis- 
charge  of   his  regimental  duties  and  the  preparation  of 
himself,  by  three  or  four  hours'  study  daily  at  the  various 
Ministries,  among  them  the  Foreign  Office,  where  he  sat 
at  the  feet  of  Bismarck,  for  the  imperial  tasks  he  would 
presumably  have  to  undertake  later. 

Emperor  William  I,  now  a  man  of  eighty-four,  was 
still  on  the  throne.  Born  in  1797,  he  lived  with  his 
parents,  Frederick  William  III  and  Queen  Louise,  in 
Koenigsberg  and  Memel  for  three  years  after  the  battle  of 
Jena,  won  the  Iron  Cross  at  the  age  of  seventeen  in  the 
war  with  Napoleon  in  1814,  took  part  in  the  entry  of  the 
Allies  into  Paris,  and  devoted  himself  thenceforward, 
until  he  became  King  of  Prussia  in  1861,  chiefly  to 
the  reorganization  of  the  army.  For  a  year  during  the 
troubled  times  of  1848  he  was  forced  to  take  refuge  in 
England,  from  whence  he  returned  to  live  quietly  at 
Coblenz  until  called  to  the  Regency  of  Prussia  in  1858. 
He  was  the  Grand  Master  of  Prussian  Freemasonry. 
The  attempts  on  his  life  in  Berlin  in  1878  by  the 
anarchists  Hodel  and  Nobiling  are  still  spoken  of  by 
eye-witnesses  to  them.  Both  attempts  were  made  within 
a  period  of  three  weeks  while  the  King  was  driving  down 

42 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  43 

Unter  den  Linden,  and  on  both  occasions  revolver  shots 
were  fired  at  him.  Hodel's  attempt  failed,  but  in  view  of 
Socialist  agitation,  the  would-be  assassin  was  beheaded 
(the  practice  still  in  Prussia)  a  few  weeks  later.  Pellets 
from  Nobiling's  weapon  struck  the  King  in  the  face  and 
arm,  and  disabled  him  from  work  for  several  weeks. 
The  political  events  of  the  reign,  including  the  Seven 
Weeks'  War  with  Austria  in  1866,  which  ended  at 
Sadowa,  where  King  William  was  in  chief  command, 
and  that  with  France  in  1870,  when  he  was  present 
as  Commander-in-Chief  at  Gravelotte  and  Sedan,  are 
frequently  referred  to  by  Bismarck  in  his  "Gedanke 
und  Erinnerungen,"  and  to  these  the  reader  may  be 
referred. 

The  high  and  amiable  character  of  the  old  Emperor, 
as  he  became  after  1870,  is  common  knowledge.  He 
was  a  thoroughgoing  Hohenzollern  in  his  views  of 
monarchy  and  his  relations  to  his  folk,  but  he  was  at 
the  same  time  the  type  of  German  chivalry,  the  essence 
of  good  nature,  the  soul  of  honour,  and  the  slave  of 
duty.  He  was  extremely  fond  of  his  grandson,  Prince 
William,  and  it  is  clear  from  the  latter's  speeches  sub- 
sequently that  the  affection  was  ardently  reciprocated. 

Of  Emperor  William,  Bismarck  writes  in  the  highest 
terms,  describing  his  "  kingly  courtesy,"  his  freedom 
from  vanity,  his  impartiality  towards  friend  and  foe 
alike ;  in  a  word,  he  says,  Emperor  William  was 
the  idea  "gentleman"  incorporated.  On  the  other 
hand,  Bismarck  tells  how  the  old  Emperor  all  his 
life  long  stood  in  awe  of  his  consort,  the  Empress 
Augusta,  Bismarck's  great  enemy  and  the  clearing- 
house (Krystallisationspunkt),  as  he  describes  her,  of  all 
the  opposition  against  him ;  and  how  the  Emperor 
used  to  speak  of  her  as  "the  hot-head"  (" Feuerkopf") 
— "  a  capital  name  for  her,"  Bismarck  adds,  "  as  she 
could  not  bear  her  authority  as  Queen  to  be  over- 


44  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

borne  by  that  of  anyone  else.  The  Iron  Chancellor,  by 
the  way,  mentions  a  curious  fact  in  connexion  with  the 
attempt  on  Emperor  William's  life  by  Nobiling.  The 
Chancellor  says  he  had  noticed  that  in  the  seventies 
the  Emperor's  powers  had  begun  to  fail,  and  that  he 
often  lost  the  thread  of  a  conversation,  both  in  hearing 
and  speaking.  After  the  Nobiling  attempt  this  disability, 
strangely  enough,  completely  disappeared.  The  fact  was 
noticed  by  the  Emperor  himself,  for  one  day  he  said 
jestingly  to  Bismarck  :  "  Nobiling  knew  better  than  the 
doctors  what  I  really  needed — a  good  blood-letting." 

Referring  to  the  Empress  Frederick  at  this  period, 
Bismarck  writes  :  "With  her  I  could  not  reckon  on  the 
same  good-will  as  I  could  with  her  husband  (Emperor 
Frederick).  Her  natural  and  inborn  sympathy  for  her 
native  country  showed  itself  from  the  very  beginning  in 
the  endeavour  to  shift  the  weight  of  Prussian-German 
influence  on  the  European  grouping  of  the  Powers  into 
the  scale  of  England,  which  she  never  ceased  to  regard 
as  her  Fatherland  ;  and,  in  consciousness  of  the 
opposition  of  interests  between  the  two  great  Asiatic 
Powers,  England  and  Russia,  to  see  Germany's  power, 
in  case  of  a  breach,  used  for  the  benefit  of  England." 

An  incident  may  be  mentioned  here  which  took  place 
at  what  was  to  turn  out  to  be  the  Emperor  William's 
death-bed  and  refers  particularly  to  our  young  Prince 
William.  Bismarck  was  talking  to  the  sick  Emperor 
a  few  days  before  the  latter's  death.  The  Chancellor 
spoke  about  the  necessity  of  publishing  an  Order,  already 
drawn  up  in  November  of  the  preceding  year,  appointing 
Prince  William  regent  in  case  the  necessity  for  such  a 
measure  should  occur.  The  sick  Emperor  expressed  the 
hope  that  Bismarck  would  stand  by  his  successor. 
Bismarck  promised  to  do  so  and  the  Emperor  pressed 
his  hand  in  token  of  satisfaction.  Then,  suddenly, 
Bismarck  relates,  the  Emperor  became  delirious  and 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  45 

began  to  rave.  Prince  William  was  the  central  figure 
in  his  ravings.  He  evidently  thought  his  grandson  was  at 
his  bedside  and  exclaimed,  using  the  familiar  Du  ;  "  Du 
.  .  .  you  must  always  keep  on  good  terms  with  the  Czar 
(Alexander  III)  .  .  .  there  is  no  need  to  quarrel  in  that 
quarter."  Thereafter  he  was  silent,  and  Bismarck  left 
the  sick-room. 

The  Prince's  parents,  Crown  Prince  Frederick  anu  his 
English  consort,  had  also  their  Court  at  the  Marmor 
Palais  in  Potsdam,  and  their  palace  in  Berlin,  but  the 
life  they  led  was  comparatively  simple.  The  Crown 
Prince  and  Princess  were  great  travellers  and  conse- 
quently often  absent  from  Germany  ;  and  when  at  home, 
while  the  Crown  Prince,  in  his  serious-minded  fashion, 
was  absorbed  in  study,  the  Crown  Princess  divided  her 
time  between  the  practice  of  the  arts  and  correspond- 
ence with  her  now  grown-up  sons  and  daughters. 

Still,  it  is  clear  from  the  signs  of  the  time  that  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  intrigue  going  on  throughout  this 
pre-accession  period,  or,  if  intrigue  is  too  strong  a  term 
for  it,  a  good  deal  of  friction,  social  and  political,  in  high 
circles.  It  was  chiefly  caused,  if  the  old  Chancellor's 
statements  to  his  sycophantic  adorer,  Busch,  are  to  be 
credited,  by  the  interference  of  the  Empress  Augusta 
and  her  daughter-in-law,  the  Crown  Princess,  in  the 
sphere  of  politics,  the  Empress  seeking  to  influence  her 
husband  in  favour  of  the  Catholics,  whom  she  had  taken 
under  her  protection,  and  the  Crown  Princess  trying,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  influence  German  policy  in  favour  of 
England. 

Exactly  what  part  Prince  William  took  in  it  all  is  not 
very  clear.  One  thing  we  know,  that  he  greatly  displeased 
Bismarck  by  his  constant  attendance  at  the  Waldersee 
salon,  then  a  social  centre  in  Berlin.  Countess  Waldersee, 
who  is  still  living  in  Hannover,  was  the  daughter  of  an 
American  banker  named  Lee.  She  married  Frederick, 


46  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

Prince  of  Schleswig,  but  he  died  six  months  after  the 
wedding.  His  widow  afterwards  married  Count  Walder- 
see,  who  was  subsequently  to  command  the  international 
forces  during  the  Boxer  troubles  in  China.  Bismarck 
detested  Waldersee,  perhaps  because  many  people  spoke 
of  him  as  his  probable  successor,  and  consequently 
looked  with  anything  but  favour  on  his  imperial  pupil's 
visit  to  the  Waldersees. 

The  great  figure  of  the  time,  however,  was  neither  the 
Emperor  nor  the  Crown  Prince  nor  Prince  William, 
but  Prince  Bismarck,  who,  as  Chancellor  for  now  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  had  throughout  that  period 
guided  the  destinies  of  Prussia  and  the  German  Empire. 
Emperor  William  and  Crown  Prince  Frederick  and 
Prince  William  were  playing,  doubtless,  more  or  less 
prominent  parts  on  the  public  stage,  but  all  things  of 
moment  gravitated  towards  Bismarck,  whose  days  were 
spent,  now  persuading  or  convincing  the  Emperor,  now 
warring  with  a  Parliament  growing  impatient  of  his 
dictatorial  attitude,  now  countermining  the  intrigues 
and  opposition  of  his  adversaries  at  Court  and  in  the 
Ministries.  He  hardly  ever  went  into  society,  but  though 
he  spent  his  days  growling  in  his  den  at  the  Foreign 
Office  when  he  was  not  immersed  in  work,  he  was  the 
great  popular  figure  of  Berlin  ;  indeed,  it  might  be  said, 
of  all  Germany. 

As  second  lieutenant,  Prince  William  had  naturally 
a  good  deal  to  learn,  though,  entering  life,  as  we  have 
seen,  as  a  "fine  young  recruit,"  having  had  a  "military 
governor  "  appointed  to  his  service  when  he  was  four, 
being  made  an  officer  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  having  passed 
most  of  his  life  hitherto  in  a  military  society  and  atmo- 
sphere, he  had  less  perhaps  to  learn  than  the  ordinary 
young  German  officer.  He  went  through  the  usual 
drills,  and  doubtless  felt,  as  keenly  as  does  the  young 
officer  everywhere,  their  monotonous  and  seemingly 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  47 

unnecessary  repetitions,  but  they  fulfilled  the  object  in 
view  and  gave  him  the  well-set-up  bearing  and  martial 
tread  which  still  distinguish  him.  Living  in  the  old 
Town  Castle  of  Potsdam,  in  rooms  that  had  once  been 
occupied  by  Frederick  the  Great,  he  entered  with  zest 
into  the  task  of  learning  the  mechanism  of  his  regiment 
and  at  the  same  time  of  the  army  generally,  though  it 
cannot  have  been  as  interesting  a  task  then  as  now,  when 
science  has  added  so  many  new  branches  to  military 
organization.  Both  he  and  his  young  wife  were  as 
hospitable  as  their  not  too  generous  means  and  occa- 
sional cheques  from  the  Emperor  William  would  allow, 
particularly  to  any  Borussian  of  the  Prince's  Bonn 
university  days  who  might  be  passing  through  Berlin 
or  Potsdam.  The  young  Prince  and  Princess  took  part, 
as  was  to  be  expected  of  them,  in  the  festivities  and 
ceremonies  of  the  Emperor's  and  Crown  Prince's  Court, 
and,  when  they  had  nothing  more  interesting  to  do,  might 
be  seen  strolling  arm  in  arm  about  the  streets  in  Potsdam 
looking  into  the  shops  as  young  married  people  do  in 
every  town,  and  being  apparently,  as  the  story-books  say, 
as  happy  as  the  day  is  long. 

On  the  whole,  however,  during  these  pre-accession 
years,  only  glimpses  of  Prince  William's  character  and 
doings  are  obtainable,  but,  though  meagre,  they  are  suffi- 
cient to  suggest  that  in  his  case,  too,  if  we  extend  the 
saying  to  cover  the  entire  period  of  youth,  the  child  was 
father  to  the  man.  The  chief,  almost  the  only,  reliable 
authorities  for  the  inner  history  of  the  time  are  the 
memoirs  and  notes  left  by  the  two  Chancellors,  Prince 
Bismarck  and  Prince  Hohenlohe — en  passant  let  the  hope 
be  expressed  here  that  in  the  interests  of  Germany  her- 
self another  Chancellor,  Prince  Bernhard  Ernst  von 
Biilow,  now  living  in  retirement  at  Rome,  will  enlighten 
the  world  as  to  that  of  the  last  ten  or  twelve  stirring 
years,  quorum  pars  magna  fnit.  Both  Bismarck  and 


48  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Hohenlohe  were  excellent  judges  of  character,  and  have 
described,  though  with  regrettable  brevity,  the  character 
of  Prince  William  about  this  time.  Talking  to  his  confi- 
dant, Dr.  Busch,  in  June,  1882,  Bismarck  says  of  the 
Prince :  "  He  is  quite  different  from  the  Emperor 
William,  and  wishes  to  take  the  government  into  his  own 
hands  ;  he  is  energetic  and  determined,  not  at  all  dis- 
posed to  put  up  with  parliamentary  co-regents,  a  regular 
guardsman  ;  Philopater  and  Antipater  at  Potsdam  !  He 
is  not  at  all  pleased  at  his  father  (Crown  Prince  Frede- 
rick) taking  up  with  professors,  with  Mommsen,  Virchow, 
Forckenbeck.  Perhaps  he  may  one  day  develop  into 
the  rocher  de  bronze  of  which  we  stand  in  need."  This 
rocher  de  bronze  is  an  expression  constantly  employed  by 
devoted  royalists  and  imperialists  in  Germany.  It  was 
first  used  by  Frederick  William  IV,  who,  in  the  jargon 
which  in  his  time  passed  for  the  German  language,  ex- 
claimed :  "Ich  werde  meine  Souvereinetat  stabilizieren  wie 
ein  rocher  de  bronze." 

Again,  about  this  time  Bismarck  says  :  "  Up  to  that 
time  (when  Prince  William  was  studying  at  the  Minis- 
tries) he  knew  little,  and  indeed  did  not  trouble  himself 
much  about  it,  but  preferred  to  enjoy  himself  in  the 
society  of  young  officers  and  such-like,"  and  he  goes  on 
to  tell  how  the  Prince  took — or  did  not  take — to  this 
Ministerial  education.  It  was  proposed  that  the  Under 
Secretary  of  State,  Herrfurth,  who  was  reputed  to  be  well 
informed,  particularly  in  statistics,  should  instruct  him 
about  internal  questions.  The  Prince  agreed  and  invited 
Herrfurth  to  lunch,  but  afterwards  told  Bismarck  he  could 
not  stand  him,  "  with  his  bristly  beard,  his  dryness  and 
tediousness."  Could  Bismarck  suggest  some  one  else  ? 
The  Chancellor  mentioned  Privy  Councillor  von  Bran- 
denstein.  The  Prince  did  not  object,  had  the  Baron 
several  times  to  meals,  but  paid  so  little  attention  to  his 
explanations  that  Brandenstein  lost  patience  and  begged 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  49 

for  some  other  employment.  Concerning  a  rendezvous, 
Bismarck  writes  :  "  He  (Prince  William)  has  more  under- 
standing, more  courage  and  greater  independence  (than 
his  grandfather),  but  in  his  leaning  for  me  he  goes  too 
far.  He  was  '  surprised '  that  V  had  waited  for  him,  a 
thing  his  grandfather  was  incapable  of  saying  ;  "  and  the 
Chancellor  adds  :  "  It  is  only  in  trifles  and  matters  of 
secondary  importance  that  one  occasionally  has  reason 
to  find  fault  with  him,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  form  of  his 
State  declarations — but  that  is  youthful  vivacity  which 
time  will  correct.  Better  too  much  than  too  little  fire." 

Busch  relates,  under  date  of  April  6,  1888,  Bismarck's 
birthday,  how  Prince  William  came  to  offer  his  congratu- 
lations, and,  having  done  so,  invited  himself  to  dinner. 
The  meal  over,  he  made  a  speech  toasting  Bismarck,  in 
which  he  said  :  "  The  Empire  is  like  an  army  corps  that 
has  lost  its  commander-in-chief  in  the  field,  while  the 
officer  who  is  next  to  him  in  rank  lies  severely  wounded. 
At  this  critical  moment  forty-six  million  loyal  German 
hearts  turn  with  solicitude  and  hope  to  the  standard,  and 
the  standard-bearer  in  whom  all  their  expectations  are 
centred.  The  standard-bearer  is  our  illustrious  Prince, 
our  great  Chancellor.  Let  him  lead  us.  We  will  follow 
him.  Long  may  he  live  ! "  Prince  Hohenlohe's  references 
to  Prince  William  as  Emperor  are  frequent  and  full,  but 
he  has  little  to  say  about  his  character  as  Prince  William 
beyond  noting,  when  there  was  some  talk  of  the  Prince 
directly  succeeding  Emperor  William,  that  he  was  "  too 
young."  On  an  occasion  subsequently  Prince  Hohenlohe 
amusingly  notes  that  the  Emperor  shook  hands  with  him 
until  his  fingers  "  nearly  cracked."  This  is  still  a  genial 
gesture  of  the  Emperor's, 

One  document,  however,  is  available  to  show  the  spirit 
of  religious  tolerance  which  then  animated  our  young 
Lutheran  Prince,  as  it  has  animated  him,  it  may  be  added, 
ever  since.  Pius  IX  had  been  succeeded  in  the  Papacy 


50  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

by  the  more  liberal  Leo  XIII,  and  the  Kulturkampf  had 
come  to  an  end.  Prince  William,  writing  to  an  uncle, 
Cardinal  Hohenlohe,  says  : — 

"  That  this  unholy  Kulturkampf  is  at  an  end  is  a  thing 
which  rejoices  me  beyond  expression.  Of  late  many 
eminent  Catholics,  among  them  Kopp  (afterwards  Car- 
dinal) have  frequently  visited  me  and  honoured  me  with 
a  confidence  at  once  complete  and  gratifying.  I  was 
often  so  happy  as  to  be  able  to  be  the  interpreter  of  their 
wishes  (to  the  Emperor  and  Bismarck,  presumably)  and 
do  them  some  service.  So  it  has  been  granted  to  my 
youth  to  co-operate  in  this  work  of  peace.  This  has 
given  me  great  pleasure  and  happiness. 

"  Give  my  regards  to  Galimberti  and  lay  my  respects  at 
the  feet  of  the  Pope. 

"  Thy  devoted  nephew, 

"WILLIAM   OF   PRUSSIA." 

With  his  future  subjects  Prince  William  was  brought 
into  close  relations  only  in  a  very  limited  way.  No 
one,  save  perhaps  Bismarck,  seems  to  have  known  or 
suspected  his  true  character  and  aims.  This  was  natural 
enough,  since  it  is  not  until  a  man  comes  to  occupy  some 
influential  or  prominent  position  that  the  public  begins 
to  take  an  interest  in  him.  His  father  would  be  Emperor 
before  him,  and  fate  might  have  it  that  he  himself  would 
not  live  to  come  to  the  throne.  Royal  highnesses  are  not 
uncommon  in  a  country  with  such  a  feudal  history  and  so 
many  courts  as  Germany.  The  young  Prince,  moreover, 
was  never,  to  use  a  phrase  of  to-day,  in  the  limelight. 
He  was  never  involved  in  a  notorious  scandal.  He  had 
not,  as  his  eldest  son,  the  present  Crown  Prince,  has,  pub- 
lished a  book.  He  was  more  or  less  absorbed  in  the 
army,  the  early  grave  of  so  many  dawning  talents.  And 
there  was  no  newspaper  press  devoted  to  chronicling  the 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  51 

doings  and  sayings  of  the  fashionable  world  of  his  time. 
His  natural  abilities  would  doubtless  have  secured  him 
reputation  and  success  in  any  sphere  of  life,  but,  as  he 
himself  would  probably  be  the  first  to  admit,  much  of  his 
fame,  and  even  much  of  his  merit,  is  due  to  the  splendid 
opportunities  afforded  him  by  his  birth  and  position. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  obvious  that  if  his  people  at  this 
period  had  not  much  opportunity  of  studying  the  young 
Prince,  he  had  been  studying  them  and  their  require- 
ments as  these  latter  appeared  to  him.  He  had  evidently 
thought  much  on  Germany's  conditions  and  prospects 
before  he  came  to  the  throne,  and  was  Empire-building 
in  imagination  long  before  he  became  Emperor.  It  is 
not  hard  to  guess  the  drift  of  his  meditations.  The 
success  of  the  Empire  depended  on  the  success  of 
Prussia,  and  the  success  of  Prussia,  ringed  in  by  possibly 
hostile  Powers,  on  union  under  a  Prussian  King  whom 
Germans  should  swear  fealty  to  and  regard  as  a  Heaven- 
granted  leader.  From  the  history  of  Prussia  he  drew 
the  conclusion  that  force,  physical  force,  well  organized 
and  equipped,  must  be  the  basis  of  Germany's  security. 
Physical  force  had  made  Brandenburg  into  Prussia,  and 
Prussia  into  the  still  nascent  modern  German  Empire. 
He  knew  that  France  was  only  waiting  for  the  day  to 
come  when  she  would  be  powerful  enough  to  recover 
her  lost  provinces.  Russia  was  friendly,  but  there  was 
no  certainty  she  would  always  be  so.  Austria  was  an 
ally,  but  many  people  in  Austria  had  not  forgotten 
Sadowa,  and  in  any  case  her  military  and  naval  forces 
were  far  from  being  efficient.  An  irresistible  army,  and 
a  national  spirit  that  would  keep  it  so,  were  consequently 
Germany's  first  essentials. 

Simultaneously  a  new  fact  of  vital  importance  for 
Germany's  prosperity  presented  itself  for  consideration— 
the  growth  of  world-policy  in  trade,  the  expansion  of 
commerce  through  the  development  caused  by  new 


52  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

conditions  of  transport  and  intercommunication  in  which 
other  nations  were  already  engaged.  The  Prince  saw  his 
country's  merchants  beginning  to  spread  over  the  earth, 
and  believing  in  the  doctrine  that  trade  follows  the  flag, 
he  felt  that  the  flag,  with  the  power  and  protection  it 
affords,  must  be  supplied.  For  this  it  appeared  to  him 
that  a  navy  was  as  indispensable  as  was  an  efficient  army 
for  Germany's  internal  security.  All  other  great  countries 
had  fine  navies,  while  to  Germany  this  complement  of 
Empire  was  practically  wanting.  Accordingly  he  now  took 
up  the  study  of  naval  science  and  naval  construction. 

There  was  an  occasion,  however,  at  this  time  when 
the  young  Prince  attracted  general  attention,  if  only  for 
a  few  days.  It  was  when  as  colonel  of  the  Body 
Guard  Hussars,  he  ordered  his  officers  to  withdraw  from 
a  Berlin  club  in  which  hazard  and  high  play  had  ruined 
some  of  the  younger  and  less  wealthy  members.  The 
committee  of  the  club  used  their  influence  to  cause 
Emperor  William  to  make  the  new  commander  cancel 

his   order.     The    Emperor   sent   for   his   grandson  and 
requested  its  withdrawal. 

"Majesty,"  said  the  young  commander,  "permit  me 

a  question — am   I   still  commander  of  the    regiment?" 

"  Of  course " 

"  Well,  then,  will  your  Majesty  allow  me  to  maintain 

the  order — or  else  accept  my  resignation  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  said  the  Emperor,  who  was  in  reality  pleased 

with  the  young   disciplinarian,  "there    can    be   no  talk 

of  such  a  thing.    I  could  not  find  so  good  a  commanding 

officer  again  in  a  hurry." 

When  the  club  committee's  ambassadors  came  to  the 

Emperor  to  learn  the  result  of  his  intervention,  his  answer 

was,  "  Very  sorry,  gentlemen  ;  I    did   my  best,  but   the 

colonel  refuses." 
The  political  situation  as  regards  France  was  just  now 

highly  precarious.     General  Boulanger,  whom  Gambetta 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  53 

once  described  as  "  one  of  the  four  best  officers  in 
France,"  had  become  Minister  of  War  in  the  de  Freycinet 
Cabinet  of  1886.  Relying  on  a  supposed  superiority  of 
the  French  army,  he  prepared  for  a  war  of  revenge 
against  Germany  and  aimed,  with  the  help  of  Deroulede 
and  Rochfort,  at  suppressing  the  parliamentary  regime 
and  establishing  himself  as  dictator.  His  plans  were 
answered  in  Germany  by  the  acceptance  of  Bismarck's 
Septennat  proposals  for  increasing  the  army  and  fixing 
its  budget  for  seven  years  in  advance.  The  war  feeling 
in  France  diminished,  and  though  it  revived  for  a  time 
owing  to  the  arrest  of  the  French  frontier  police  com- 
missary Schnaebele,  it  finally  died  out  on  that  officer's 
release  at  the  particular  request  of  the  Czar  to  Emperor 
William.  Boulanger's  subsequent  history  only  concerns 
France.  He  was  sent  to  a  provincial  command,  but 
returned  to  Paris,  where  he  was  joyously  received  and 
elected  to  Parliament  by  a  large  majority.  He  might, 
it  is  believed,  a  year  or  two  later,  on  being  elected  by 
the  department  of  the  Seine,  with  Paris  at  his  back, 
have  made  a  successful  coup  d'etat  on  the  night  of  his 
triumphant  election,  but  his  courage  at  the  last  moment 
failed,  and  on  learning  that  he  was  about  to  be  arrested 
he  fled  to  Brussels,  where  he  committed  suicide  on  the 
grave  of  his  mistress. 

The  time,  however,  was  approaching,  the  most  in- 
teresting, and  as  the  succession  of  events  have  shown, 
the  most  momentous  for  the  Empire  since  1870,  when 
Prince  William's  accession  was  obviously  at  hand. 
During  the  year  1887  and  the  early  part  of  1888  the 
attention  of  the  world  was  fixed,  first  curiously,  then 
anxiously,  then  sympathetically  on  the  situation  in 
Berlin.  Emperor  William  was  an  old  man  just  turned 
ninety ;  he  was  fast  breaking  up  and  any  week  his  death 
might  be  announced.  Hereditarily  the  Crown  Prince 
Frederick,  now  fifty-six,  should  succeed,  and  a  new 


54  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

reign  would  open  which  might  introduce  political 
changes  of  moment  to  other  countries  as  well  as  Ger- 
many. The  new  reign  was  indeed  to  open,  but  only  to 
prove  one  of  the  shortest  in  history. 

In  January,  1887,  a  Shadow  fell  on  the  House  of 
Hohenzollern,  the  Shadow  that  must  one  day  fall  on 
every  living  creature.  It  was  noticed  that  the  Crown 
Prince  was  hoarse,  had  caught  a  cold,  or  something 
of  the  kind.  A  stay  at  Ems  did  him  no  good,  Doctors 
Tobold  and  von  Bergmann,  the  leading  specialists  of 
the  day,  were  consulted,  a  laryngoscopic  examination 
followed,  the  presence  of  cancer  was  strongly  suspected, 
and  an  operation  was  advised.  At  this  juncture,  at  the 
suggestion,  it  is  said,  of  Queen  Victoria,  it  was  decided 
to  summon  the  specialist  of  highest  reputation  in  England, 
Sir  Morell  Mackenzie,  who,  having  examined  the  patient, 
and  basing  his  opinion  on  a  report  of  Professor  Virchow's, 
declared  that  the  growth  was  not  malignant.  It  was  now 
May,  and  on  Mackenzie's  advice  the  patient  visited 
England,  where,  accompanied  by  Prince  William,  he 
was  present  at  the  celebration  of  Queen  Victoria's  Jubilee. 
Some  months  after  his  return  to  the  Continent  were 
spent  with  his  family  in  Tirol  and  Italy,  until  November 
found  him  in  San  Remo,  where  a  meeting  of  famous 
surgeons  from  Vienna,  Berlin,  and  Frankfort-on-Main 
finally  diagnosed  the  existence  of  cancer,  and  Mackenzie 
coincided  with  the  judgment. 

The  old  Emperor  died  on  March  9th.  He  had  taken 
cold  on  March  3rd,  and  on  the  yth  a  chronic  ailment  of 
the  kidneys  from  which  he  suffered  became  worse,  he 
could  not  sleep,  his  strength  began  to  ebb,  and  it  was 
clear  the  end  was  near.  On  the  6th,  however,  he  was 
able  to  speak  for  a  few  minutes  with  Prince  William, 
with  Bismarck,  and  with  his  only  daughter,  the  Grand 
Duchess  of  Baden,  who  had  arrived  post-haste  the  night 
before  to  be  present  at  the  death-bed.  The  Grand 


PRE-ACCESSION    DAYS  55 

Duchess,  as  the  Emperor  spoke,  besought  him  not  to  tire 
himself  by  talking.  "  I  have  no  time  to  be  tired,"  he 
murmured,  in  a  flicker  of  the  sense  of  duty  which  had 
been  a  lifelong  feature  of  his  character,  and  a  few  hours 
later  he  passed  quietly  away.  The  funeral,  headed  by 
Prince  William  and  the  Knights  of  the  Black  Eagle, 
took  place  on  the  2oth.  The  new  Emperor  Frederick, 
who  had  hurried  from  San  Remo  on  receiving  news  of 
the  Emperor's  condition,  was  too  ill  to  join  it,  but  stood 
behind  a  closed  window  of  his  palace  and  saluted  as  the 
coffin  went  by. 

The  incidents  of  the  Emperor  Frederick's  ascent  of 
the  throne,  the  amnesty  and  liberal-minded  proclamations 
to  his  people,  and  in  particular  the  heroic  resignation 
with  which  he  bore  his  fate,  are  events  of  common  know- 
ledge. One  of  them  was  the  so-called  Battenberg  affair. 
Queen  Victoria  desired  a  marriage  between  Princess 
Victoria,  the  present  Emperor's  sister,  then  aged  twenty- 
two,  and  Prince  Alexander  of  Battenberg,  at  that  time 
Prince  of  Bulgaria,  so  as  to  secure  him  against  Russia  by 
an  alliance  with  the  imperial  house  of  Germany.  Prince 
Bismarck  objected  on  the  ground  that  the  marriage 
would  show  Germany  in  an  unfriendly  light  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  might  subject  a  Prussian  princess  to  the  risk 
of  expulsion  from  Sofia.  Another  account  is  that  the 
Chancellor  feared  an  increase  of  English  influence  at  the 
German  Court  with  the  Prince  of  Bulgaria  as  its  channel. 
In  any  case,  the  result  of  the  Chancellor's  opposition  was 
to  place  the  sick  Emperor  in  a  delicate  and  painful  situa- 
tion. It  was  ended  by  his  yielding  to  the  Chancellor's 
representations,  and  the  marriage  did  not  come  off. 

Meanwhile,  the  Emperor's  malady  was  making  fatal 
progress.  The  Shadow  was  growing  darker  and  more 
formidable.  A  season  of  patiently-borne  suffering  fol- 
lowed, until  Death  in  his  terrific  majesty  appeared  and 
another  Emperor  occupied  the  throne. 


IV 


PRINCE    WILLIAM    is   now    German    Emperor 
and  King  of  Prussia.     Before  observing  him  as 
trustee  and  manager  of  his  magnificent  inheritance 
a  pause  may  be  made  to  investigate   the  true  meaning 
of    a   much-discussed   phrase    which,    while   suggesting 
nothing  to  tne  Englishman  though  he  will  find  it  stamped 
in  the  words  "Dei  gratia"  on  every  shilling  piece  that 
passes  through  his  hands,  is  the  bed-rock  and  foundation 
of  the  Emperor's  system  of  rule  and  the  key  to  his  nature 
and  conduct. 

Government  in  Germany  is  dynastic,  not,  as  in 
England  and  America,  parliamentary  or  democratic. 
The  King  of  Prussia  possesses  his  crown — such  is 
the  theory  of  the  people  as  well  as  of  the  dynasty — by 
the  grace  of  God,  not  by  the  consent  of  the  people. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  German  Emperor,  who  fills 
his  office  as  King  of  Prussia.  To  the  Anglo-Saxon 
foreigner  the  dynasty  in  Germany,  and  particularly  in 
Prussia,  appears  a  sort  of  fetish,  the  worship  of  which 
begins  in  the  public  schools  with  lessons  on  the  heroic 
deeds  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  with  the  Emperor,  as 
high  priest,  constantly  calling  on  his  people  to  worship 
with  him.  This  view  of  the  kingly  succession  may  seem 
Oriental,  but  it  is  not  surprising  when  one  reflects  that 
the  Hohenzollern  dynasty  is  over  a  thousand  years  old 
and  during  that  time  has  ruled  successively  in  part  of 

56 


-VON    GOTTES   GNADEN"  57 

Southern  Germany,  in  Brandenburg,  in  Prussia,  until 
at  last,  imperially,  in  all  Germany.  Moreover,  it  has 
ruled  wisely  on  the  whole  ;  in  the  course  of  centuries  it 
has  brought  a  poor  and  disunited  people,  living  on  a 
soil  to  a  great  extent  barren  and  sandy,  to  a  pitch  of 
power  and  prosperity  which  is  exciting  the  envy  and 
apprehension  of  other  nations. 

In  England  government  passed  centuries  ago  from  the 
dynasty  to  the  people,  and  there  are  people  in  England 
to-day  who  could  not  name  the  dynasty  that  occupies 
the  English  throne.  Such  ignorance  in  Germany  is 
hardly  conceivable.  In  Prussia  government  has  always 
been  the  appanage  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  the 
Emperor  is  resolved  that,  supported  by  the  army,  it 
shall  continue  to  be  their  appanage  in  the  Empire. 
Government  means  guidance,  and  no  one  is  more 
conscious  of  the  fact  than  the  Emperor,  for  he  is 
trying  to  guide  his  people  all  the  time.  Frederick 
William  IV  once  said  to  the  Diet :  "  You  are  here  to 
represent  rights,  the  rights  of  your  class  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  rights  of  the  throne :  to  represent 
opinion  is  not  your  task."  This  relation  of  government 
and  people  has  become  modified  of  recent  years  to  a 
very  obvious  degree,  but  constitutionally  not  a  step  has 
been  taken  in  the  direction  of  popular,  that  is  to  say 
parliamentary,  rule. 

England  and  Germany  are  both  constitutional  mon- 
archies, but  both  the  monarch  and  the  Constitution  in 
Germany  are  different  from  the  monarch  and  the  Consti- 
tution in  England.  The  British  Constitution  is  a  growth 
of  centuries,  not,  like  the  German  Constitution,  the 
creation  of  a  day.  The  British  Constitution  is  unwritten, 
if  it  is  stamped,  as  Mary  said  the  word  "  Calais  "  would  be 
found  stamped  on  her  heart  after  death,  on  the  heart  and 
brain  of  every  Englishman.  The  German  Constitution 
is  a  written  document  in  seventy-eight  chapters,  not  fifty 


58  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

years  old,  and  on  which,  compared  with  the  British  Con- 
stitution, the  ink  is  not  yet  dry.  In  England  to  the 
people  the  Constitution  is  the  real  monarch  :  in  Germany 
the  monarchy  is  to  the  people  what  the  British  Con- 
stitution is  to  the  Englishman  ;  and  while  in  England  the 
monarch  is  the  first  counsellor  to  the  Constitution,  in 
Germany  the  Constitution  is  the  first  counsellor  to  the 
monarch. 

The  consequence  in  England  is  representative  govern- 
ment, with  a  political  career  for  every  ordinary  citizen  ; 
the  consequence  in  Germany  is  constitutional  monarchy, 
properly  so-called,  with  a  political  career  for  no  common 
citizen.  Neither  system  is  perfect,  but  both,  apparently, 
give  admirable  national  results.  And  yet,  of  course,  an 
Englishman  cannot  help  thinking  that  if  Herr  Bebel 
were  made  Minister  to-morrow,  Social  Democracy  would 
cease  to  exist. 

The  people  acquiesce  in  the  Hohenzollern  view,  not 
indeed  with  perfect  and  entire  unanimity,  for  the  small 
Progressive  party  demand  a  parliamentary  form  of 
government,  if  not  on  the  exact  model  of  that  established 
in  England.  The  Social  Democrats,  evidently,  would 
have  no  government  at  all.  Many  English  people 
suppose  that  Germans  generally  must  desire  parliamentary 
rule  and  would  help  them  to  get  it,  for  multitudes  of 
English  people  are  firmly  persuaded  that  it  is  England's 
mission  to  extend  to  other  peoples  the  institutions  which 
have  suited  her  so  well,  without  sufficiently  considering 
how  different  are  their  circumstances,  geographical 
position,  history,  traditions,  and  national  character.  A 
very  similar  mistake  is  made  in  Germany  by  multitudes 
of  Germans,  who  believe  it  is  Germany's  mission  to 
impose  her  culture,  her  views  of  man  and  life,  on  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

The  Prussian  view  of  monarchy,  expressed  in  the 
words  "  von  Gottes  Gnaden  "  ("  By  the  Grace  of  God"), 


-VON    GOTTES   GNADEN"  59 

is  a  political  conception,  which,  under  its  customary 
English  translation,  "  by  Divine  Right,"  has  often  been 
ridiculed  by  English  writers.  Lord  Macaulay,  it  will  be 
remembered,  in  his  "  History  of  England,"  asserts  that 
the  doctrine  first  emerged  into  notice  when  James  the 
Sixth  of  Scotland  ascended  the  English  throne.  "  It  was 
gravely  maintained,"  writes  Macaulay,  "  that  the  Supreme 
Being  regarded  hereditary  monarchy,  as  opposed  to  other 
systems  of  government,  with  peculiar  favour  ;  that  the 
rule  of  succession  in  order  of  primogeniture  was  a  divine 
institution  anterior  to  the  Christian,  and  even  to  the 
Mosaic,  dispensation  ;  that  no  human  power,  not  even 
that  of  the  whole  legislature,  no  length  of  adverse 
possession,  though  it  extended  to  ten  centuries,  could 
deprive  the  legitimate  prince  of  his  rights ;  that  his 
authority  was  necessarily  always  despotic  ;  that  the  laws 
by  which,  in  England  and  other  countries,  the  prerogative 
was  limited,  were  to  be  regarded  merely  as  concessions 
which  the  sovereign  had  freely  made  and  might  at  his 
pleasure  resume  ;  and  that  any  treaty  into  which  a  king 
might  enter  with  his  people  was  merely  a  declaration 
of  his  present  intention,  and  not  a  contract  of  which 
the  performance  could  be  demanded."  The  statement 
exactly  expresses  the  ideas  on  the  subject  attributed 
abroad  to  the  Emperor. 

The  distinguished  German  historian,  Heinrich  von 
Treitschke,  writes  of  King  Frederick  William  IV,  the 
predecessor  of  Emperor  William  I,  as  follows  : — 

"  He  believed  in  a  mysterious  enlightenment  which  is 
granted  '  von  Gottes  Gnaden  '  to  kings  rather  than 
other  mortals.  All  the  blessings  of  peace,  which  his 
people  could  expect  under  a  Christian  monarch,  should 
proceed  from  the  wisdom  of  the  Crown  alone  ;  he  re- 
garded his  high  office  like  a  patriarch  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  held  the  kingship  as  a  fatherly  power  established 
by  God  Himself  for  the  education  of  the  people.  What- 


60  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

ever  happened  in  the  State  he  connected  with  the  person 
of  the  monarch.  If  only  his  age  and  its  royal  awakener 
had  understood  each  other  better  !  He  had,  however,  in 
his  strangely  complicated  process  of  development,  con- 
structed such  extraordinary  ideals  that  though  he  might 
sometimes  agree  in  words  with  his  contemporaries  he 
never  did  as  to  the  things,  and  spoke  a  different  language 
from  his  people.  Even  General  Gerlach,  his  good  friend 
and  servant,  used  to  say  :  '  The  ways  of  the  King  are 
wonderful ; '  and  the  not  less  loyal  Bunsen  wrote  about 
a  complaint  of  the  monarch  that  '  no  one  understands 
me,  no  one  agrees  with  me,'  the  commentary — '  When 
one  understood  him,  how  could  one  agree  with  him  ? '  ' 

It  was  this  king,  be  it  parenthetically  remarked,  who 
said,  when  his  people  were  clamouring  for  a  Constitution, 
in  1847  :  "  Now  and  never  will  I  admit  that  a  written 
paper,  like  a  second  Providence,  force  itself  between 
our  God  in  Heaven  and  this  land" — and  a  few  months 
later  had  to  sign  the  document  his  people  demanded. 

Von  Treitschke,  writing  on  the  last  birthday  of  Emperor 
William  I,  thus  spoke  of  the  doctrine  :  "  A  generation  ago 
an  attempt  was  made  by  a  theologizing  State  theory  to 
inculcate  the  doctrine  of  a  power  of  the  throne,  divine, 
released  from  all  earthly  obligations.  This  mystery  of 
the  Jacobins  never  found  entrance  into  the  clear  common 
sense  of  our  people." 

Prince  Bismarck's  view  of  the  doctrine  was  explained 
in  a  speech  he  made  to  the  Prussian  Diet  in  1847.  He 
was  speaking  on  "  Prussia  as  a  Christian  State."  "  For 
me,"  he  said,  "the  words  'von  Gottes  Gnaden,'  which 
Christian  rulers  join  to  their  names,  are  no  empty  phrase, 
but  I  see  in  them  the  recognition  that  the  princes  desire 
to  wield  the  sceptre  which  God  has  assigned  them  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  God  on  earth.  As  God's  will  I  can, 
however,  only  recognize  what  is  revealed  in  the  Christian 
gospels,  and  I  believe  I  am  in  my  right  when  I  call  that 


6i 

State  a  Christian  one  which  has  taken  as  its  task  the 
realization,  the  putting  into  operation,  of  the  Christian 
doctrine.  .  .  .  Assuming  generally  that  the  State  has  a 
religious  foundation,  in  my  opinion  this  foundation  can 
only  be  Christianity.  Take  away  this  religious  foundation 
from  the  State  and  we  retain  nothing  of  the  State  but  a 
chance  aggregation  of  rights,  a  kind  of  bulwark  against 
the  war  of  all  against  all,  which  the  old  philosophers 
spoke  of."  On  the  second  occasion,  thirty  years  later, 
the  Chancellor's  theme  was  "Obedience  to  God  and 
the  King." 

"  I  refer,"  he  said,  "  to  the  wrong  interpretation  of  a 
sentence  which  in  itself  is  right — namely,  that  one 
must  obey  God  rather  than  man.  The  previous  speaker 
must  know  me  long  enough  to  be  aware  that  I  subscribe 
to  the  entire  correctness  of  this  sentence,  and  that  I 
believe  I  obey  God  when  I  serve  the  King  under  the 
device  '  With  God  for  King  and  Country.'  Now  he  (the 
previous  speaker)  has  separated  the  component  parts 
of  the  device,  for  he  sees  God  separated  from  King  and 
Fatherland.  I  cannot  follow  him  on  this  road.  I 
believe  I  serve  my  God  when  I  serve  my  King  in  the  pro- 
tection of  the  commonwealth  whose  monarch  '  von  Gottes 
Gnaden  '  he  is,  and  on  whom  the  emancipation  from 
alien  spiritual  influence  and  the  independence  of  his 
people  from  Romish  pressure  have  been  laid  by  God  as 
a  duty  in  which  I  serve  the  King.  The  previous  speaker 
would  certainly  admit  in  private  that  we  do  not  believe  in 
the  divinity  of  a  State  idol,  though  he  seems  to  assert 
here  that  we  believe  in  it." 

In  these  passages,  it  may  be  remarked,  Bismarck  avoids 
an  unconditional  endorsement  of  the  Hohenzollern 
doctrine  of  divine  "right"  or  even  divine  appointment. 
Indeed  all  he  does  is  to  express  his  belief  in  the  sincerity 
of  rulers  who  declare  their  desire  to  rule  in  accordance 
with  the  will  of  God  as  it  appears  in  Holy  Scripture.  In 


62  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

addition  to  his  dislike  of  a  "Christianity  above  the  State," 
the  fact  that  he  did  not  subscribe  to  the  doctrine  of 
divine  right,  as  these  words  are  interpreted  in  England,  is 
shown  by  another  speech  in  which  he  said,  "  The  essence 
of  the  constitutional  monarchy  under  which  we  live  is  the 
co-operation  of  the  monarchical  will  and  the  convictions 
of  the  people."  But  what,  one  is  tempted  to  ask,  if  will 
and  convictions  differ  ? 

In  recent  times,  Dr.  Paul  Liman,  in  an  excellent 
character  sketch  of  the  Emperor,  devotes  his  first  chapter 
to  the  subject,  thus  recognizing  the  important  place  it 
occupies  in  the  Emperor's  mentality.  Dr.  Liman,  like  all 
German  writers  who  have  dealt  with  the  topic,  animad- 
verts on  the  Hohenzollern  obsession  by  the  theory  and 
attributes  it  chiefly  to  the  romantic  side  of  the  Emperor's 
nature  which  was  strongly  influenced  in  youth  by  the 
"  wonderful  events  "  of  1870,  by  the  national  outburst 
of  thanks  to  God  at  the  time,  and  by  the  return  from 
victorious  war  of  his  father,  his  grandfather,  and  other 
heroes,  as  they  must  have  appeared  to  him,  like  Bis- 
marck, Moltke,  and  Roon. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Prince  von  Biilow,  during  the 
ten  years  of  his  Chancellorship,  made  no  parliamentary 
or  other  specific  and  public  allusion  to  the  doctrine. 

Before,  however,  attempting  to  offer  a  somewhat 
different  explanation  of  the  Emperor's  attitude  in  the 
matter  from  those  just  cited,  let  us  see  what  statements 
he  has  himself  made  publicly  about  it  and  how  the 
doctrine  has  been  interpreted  by  his  contemporaries.  He 
made  no  reference  to  it  in  his  declarations  to  the  army, 
the  navy,  and  the  people  when  he  ascended  the  throne. 
His  first  allusion  to  it  was  in  March,  1890,  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Brandenburg  provincial  Diet  at  the  Kaiser- 
hof  Hotel  in  Berlin,  and  then  the  allusion  was  not 
explicit.  "  I  see,"  said  the  Emperor,  "  in  the  folk  and 
land  which  have  descended  to  me  a  talent  entrusted  to 


"VON   GOTTES   GNADEN"  63 

me  by  God,  which  it  is  my  task  to  increase,  and  I 
intend  with  all  my  power  so  to  administer  this  talent 
that  I  hope  to  be  able  to  add  much  to  it.  Those  who 
are  willing  to  help  me  I  heartily  welcome  whoever  they 
may  be  :  those  who  oppose  me  in  this  task  I  will 
crush." 

His  next  allusion,  at  Bremen  in  April  of  the  same  year, 
when  he  was  laying  the  foundation-stone  of  a  statue  to 
his  grandfather,  King  William,  a  few  months  subsequent 
to  Bismarck's  retirement,  was  more  explicit,  yet  not 
completely  so. 

"  It  is  a  tradition  of  our  House,"  so  ran  his  speech, 
"that  we,  the  Hohenzollerns,  regard  ourselves  as 
appointed  by  God  to  govern  and  to  lead  the  people, 
whom  it  is  given  us  to  rule,  for  their  well-being  and  the 
advancement  of  their  material  and  intellectual  interests." 

The  next  reference,  and  the  only  one  in  which  a  divine 
"  right "  to  rule  in  Prussia  is  formally  claimed,  occurs 
four  years  later  at  Koenigsberg,  the  ancient  crowning- 
place  of  Prussian  kings.  Here  he  said  : — 

"  The  successor  (namely  himself)  of  him  who  of  his 
own  right  was  sovereign  prince  in  Prussia  will  follow  the 
same  path  as  his  great  ancestor  ;  as  formerly  the  first 
King  (of  Prussia,  Frederick  I.)  said,  '  My  crown  is  born 
with  me,'  and  as  his  greater  son  (the  Great  Elector)  gave 
his  authority  the  stability  of  a  rock  of  bronze,  so  I  too, 
like  my  imperial  grandfather,  represent  the  kingship 
'  von  Gottes  Gnaden.'  " 

At  Coblenz  in  1897,  m  reference  to  the  first  Emperor 
William's  labours  for  the  army  and  people  : — 

"  He  (Emperor  William)  left  Coblenz  to  ascend  the 
throne  as  the  selected  instrument  of  the  Lord  he  always 
regarded  himself  to  be.  For  us  all,  and  above  all  for  us 
princes,  he  raised  once  more  aloft  and  lent  lustrous 
beams  to  a  jewel  which  we  should  hold  high  and  holy 
—that  is  the  kingship  von  Gottes  Gnaden,  the  king- 


64  WILLIAM   OF    GERMANY 

ship  with  its  onerous  duties,  its  never-ending,  ever-con- 
tinuing trouble  and  labour,  with  its  fearful  responsibility 
to  the  Creator  alone,  from  which  no  human  being,  no 
minister,  no  parliament,  no  people  can  release  the 
prince."  Here,  too,  if  the  words  "responsibility  to  the 
Creator  alone  "  be  taken  in  their  ordinary  English  sense, 
the  allusion  to  a  divine  right  may  be  construed,  though 
it  is  observable  that  the  word  "  right "  is  not  actually 
employed. 

In  Berlin,  when  unveiling  a  monument  to  the  Great 
Elector,  the  Emperor  was  filled  with  the  same  idea  of 
the  God-given  mission  of  the  Hohenzollerns.  After 
briefly  sketching  the  deeds  of  the  Elector — how  he 
came  young  to  the  throne  to  find  crops  down-trodden, 
villages  burnt  to  the  ground,  a  starved  and  fallen  people, 
persecuted  on  every  side,  his  country  the  arena  for  bar- 
barous robber-bands  who  had  spread  war  and  devas- 
tation throughout  Germany  for  thirty  years ;  how,  with 
"  invincible  reliance  on  God  "  and  an  iron  will,  he  swept 
the  pieces  of  the  land  together,  raised  trade  and  com- 
merce, agriculture  and  industry,  in  for  that  period  an 
incredibly  short  time  ;  how  he  brought  into  existence  a 
new  army  entirely  devoted  to  him  ;  how,  in  fine,  guided 
by  the  hope  of  founding  a  great  northern  Empire,  which 
would  bring  the  German  peoples  together,  he  became  an 
authority  in  Europe  and  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the 
present  Empire — after  sketching  all  this,  the  Emperor 
continues  :  "  How  is  this  wonderful  success  of  the  house 
of  Hohenzollern  to  be  explained  ?  Solely  in  this  way, 
that  every  prince  of  the  House  is  conscious  from  the 
beginning  that  he  is  only  an  earthly  vicegerent,  who  must 
give  an  account  of  his  labour  to  a  higher  King  and 
Master,  and  show  that  he  has  been  a  faithful  executor  of 
the  high  commands  laid  upon  him."  One  finds  exactly 
the  same  idea  expressed  three  months  later  when  talking 
to  his  "  Men  of  Brandenburg."  "  You  know  well,"  he 


"VON    GOTTES   GNADEN "  65 

reminded  them,"  that  I  regard  my  whole  position  and 
my  task  as  laid  on  me  by  Heaven,  and  that  1  am  appointed 
by   a    Higher   Power  to  whom  I   must  later  render  an 
account.      Accordingly     I    can  assure   you   that    not   a 
morning  or    evening   passes  without   a   prayer  for  my 
people  and  a  special  thought  for  my  Mark  Brandenburg." 
To   the   Anglo-Saxon    understanding,  of    course,    the 
theory   of  divine    right   has   long   appeared    untenable, 
obsolete,  and,  as  Macaulay  says,  absurd.     Many  people 
to-day  would  go  farther  and  argue  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  divine  right  at  all,  since  "  rights  "  are  a  purely 
human  idea,  possibly  a  purely  legal  one.     But  it  is  at 
least  doubtful  that  the  Emperor  uses  the  expression  "  von 
Gottes  Gnaden  "  in  a   sense   exactly   coterminous   with 
that  of  "  divine  right "  as  used  by  Lord  Macaulay  and 
later  Anglo-Saxon  writers  and  speakers.     The  latter,  when 
dealing  with  things  German,  not  unfrequently  fall  into 
the  error  of  mistranslation  and  are  thus  at  times  respon- 
sible for  national  misunderstandings.    The  Italian  saying, 
"  traduttore,  tradittore,"  is  the  expression   of  a  fact  too 
seldom  recognized,  especially  by  those  whose  business  it 
is  to  interpret,  so  to  speak,  one  people  to  another.     Lan- 
guage is  as  mysterious  and  elusive  a  thing  as  aught  con- 
nected with  humanity,  as  love,  for  example,  or  music  ; 
and  it  may  be  asserted  with  some  degree  of  confidence 
that  among  every  people  there  are  ideas  current,  and  in 
all  departments — in   law,  society,    art — which    it  is   im- 
possible  exactly  to  translate   into  the    speech  of   other 
nations.     The   words  used  may  be  the  same,  but   the 
connotation,  all  the  words  imply  and  suggest,  is,  perhaps 
in    very   important    respects,    different,   and    requires  a 
paraphrase,  longer  or  shorter,  to  explain  them.     Take  the 
word   "  false "    in    English    and   "  falsch "    in    German. 
They  look  alike,  yet  while  the   English  "  false "   carries 
with  it  a  moral  reproach,  the  German  word,  where  the 
context    does     not    explicitly   prove    otherwise,   means 
F 


66  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

simply  "  incorrect,"  "  erroneous,"  without  the  moral 
reproach  added.  Accordingly,  when  a  German  Chan- 
cellor asserts  that  the  statement  of  an  English  Minister  is 
"  falsch  "  he  does  not  necessarily  mean  anything  offensive, 
but  only  that  the  English  Minister  is  mistaken. 

From  this  point  of  view  one  may  regard  the  statements 
of  the  Emperor  concerning  his  kingly  office.  He  has 
recently  begun  to  use  the  expression  "  German  Emperor 
von  Gottes  Gnaden,"  a  thing  done  by  none  of  his 
imperial  predecessors,  and  certainly  a  very  curious 
extension  of  a  doctrine  which  traditionally  only  applies 
to  wearers  of  the  crown  of  Prussia.  But  if  he  does,  it 
may,  it  is  here  suggested,  be  considered  further  evidence 
that  he  employs  the  terms  "  von  Gottes  Gnaden "  in  a 
sense  other  than  that  of  "  divine  right "  as  conceived 
by  the  Anglo-Saxon.  The  German  "Gnade"  means 
"  favour,"  "  grace,"  "  mercy,"  "  pity,"  or  "  blessing,"  and 
is  at  times  used  in  direct  contrast  with  the  word  "  Recht," 
which  means  "justice"  as  well  as  "right."  The  point, 
indeed,  need  hardly  be  elaborated,  and  the  Emperor's 
own  explanation  of  the  revelation  of  God  to  mankind, 
with  its  special  reference  to  his  grandfather  which  we 
shall  find  later  in  the  confession  of  faith  to  Admiral 
Hollmann,  is  highly  significant  of  the  sense  in  which  he 
regards  himself  and  every  ruling  Hohenzollern  as  selected 
for  the  duties  of  Prussian  kingship.  It  is  the  work  of  the 
kingship  he  is  divinely  appointed  to  do  of  which  he  is 
always  thinking,  not  the  legal  right  to  the  kingship 
vis  a  vis  his  people  he  is  mistakenly  supposed  to  claim. 
He  regards  himself  as  a  trustee,  not  as  the  owner  of  the 
property.  And  is  not  such  a  spirit  a  proper  and  praise- 
worthy one  ?  In  a  sense  we  Christians,  if  in  a  position 
of  responsibility,  believe  that  we  are  all  divinely 
appointed  to  the  work  each  of  us  has  to  do  :  instruments 
of  God,  who  shapes  our  ends,  rough-hew  them  how  we 
may.  The  Emperor  finely  says  of  the  Almighty  :  "  He 


"VON    GOTTES   GNADEN  "  67 

breathed  into  man  His  breath,  that  is  a  portion  of 
Himself,  a  soul."  Reason  is  what  chiefly  distinguishes 
man  from  the  brute,  though  there  are  those  who  hold 
that  reason  is  but  a  higher  form  of  brutish  instinct, 
which  again  has  its  degree  among  the  brutes ;  but, 
assuming  that  reason  is  of  divine  origin,  enabling  us  to 
receive,  by  one  means  or  another,  the  dictates  of  the 
Almighty,  it  seems  clear  that  there  must  be  channels 
through  which  these  dictates  become  known  to  us. 

This  conveyance,  this  making  plain  is,  as  many  people, 
and  the  Emperor  among  them,  believe,  performed  by 
God  through  the  agency  of  those  whom  mankind  agree 
to  call  "  great."  For  the  last  nineteen  centuries  a  large 
part  of  civilized  mankind  is  at  one  in  the  belief  that 
Christ  was  such  an  agency,  while  millions  again  agree 
to  call  the  agency  Buddha,  Mahomet,  Confucius,  or 
Zoroaster.  In  the  creed  of  Islam  Christ,  as  a  prophet, 
comes  fifth  from  Adam.  In  America  there  are  thousands 
who  believe,  or  did  believe,  in  the  agency  of  a  Mrs.  Eddy 
or  a  Dr.  Dowie.  And  if  this  is  so  in  matters  of  religion, 
itself  only  a  form  of  the  reasoning  soul,  why  should  it 
not  be  the  same  in  morals  or  philosophy,  art  or  science, 
government  or  administration  :  why  should  we  not  all 
accept,  as  many  still  do,  the  sayings  and  writings  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets  (as  does  the  Emperor),  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  of  Bacon  and  Hobbes,  of  Milton  and  Shake- 
speare and  Goethe,  of  Kepler  and  Galileo,  or  Charlemagne 
and  Napoleon,  as  divinely  intended  to  convey  and  make 
plain  to  us  the  dictates  of  Heaven  until  such  time  as  yet 
greater  souls  shall  instruct  us  afresh  and  still  more 
fully  ? 

It  may  be  that  the  Emperor  thinks  in  some  such  way  ; 
his  speeches  and  edicts  at  least  suggest  it.  Certainly,  as 
already  mentioned,  he  did  on  one  occasion,  when  speak- 
ing of  his  kingship,  employ  the  word  "right"  as  descrip- 
tive of  the  nature  of  his  appointment  by  God.  But  that 


68  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

was  early  in  his  reign,  and  at  no  time  since  has  he 
insisted  on  a  Heaven-granted  right  to  rule.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  different  with  some  of  his  absolute  predecessors, 
but  it  was  not  the  view  of  Frederick  the  Great,  who 
declared  himself  "  the  first  servant  of  the  State."  More- 
over, it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  the  Emperor,  who  is 
acquainted  with  the  facts  of  history  and  is  a  man  of 
practical  common  sense  besides,  does  not  know  that  the 
doctrine  of  "  divine  right "  has  long  been  rejected  by 
people  of  intelligence  in  every  civilized  country,  in- 
cluding his  own. 

If  he  really  believes  in  divine  right  in  the  Stuart  sense 
he  must  think  that  the  conditions  of  Germany  are  so 
different  from  those  of  the  rest  of  civilized  mankind,  and 
his  own  people  so  little  advanced  in  knowledge  and 
political  science,  that  a  doctrine  absurd  and  dangerous 
to  the  peace  of  enlightened  commonwealths  is  applicable 
as  a  basis  of  rule  in  his  own.  It  seems  a  more  plausible 
view,  that  the  Emperor  considers  the  expression  "  von 
Gottes  Gnaden"  an  academic  formula  of  government,  or 
what  is  still  more  likely,  as  a  moral  and  religious,  not  a 
legal,  dogma,  which  yet  expresses  one  of  the  leading  and 
most  admirable  features  of  his  policy  as  a  ruler.  If  it  is 
not  so,  he  is  inconsistent  with  himself,  since  he  has 
repeatedly  declared  himself  bound  by  the  Constitution  in 
accordance  with  which  his  grandfather  and  father  and  he 
himself  have  hitherto  ruled.  At  present  the  doctrine  of 
divine  "  right "  is  regarded  by  Germans  no  less  than  by 
Englishmen  as  dead  and  buried,  and  mention  of  it  in 
Germany  is  usually  greeted  with  a  smile.  Even  the 
notion  of  appointment  by  divine  "grace,"  while  con- 
sidered a  harmless  and  praiseworthy  article  of  faith  with 
the  Emperor,  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  living  principle 
of  government. 


V 

THE  ACCESSION 

1888-1890 

WITH  his  accession  began  for  the  Emperor  a 
period   of   extraordinary   activity  which   has 
continued    practically   undiminished    to    the 
present  day.     During  that  time  he  has  been  the  most 
prominent  man  and  monarch  of  his  generation.     From 
the  domestic  point  of  view  his  life  perhaps  has  not  been 
marked  by  many  notable  events,  but  from  the  point  of 
view  of  politics  and  international  relations  it  has   been 
the  history  of  his  reign  and  to  no  small  extent  the  history 
of  the  world. 

When  a  German  Emperor  ascends  the  throne  there  is 
no  great  outburst  of  national  rejoicing,  no  great  series  of 
popular  ceremonials.  There  is  no  brilliant  procession  as 
in  England,  no  impressive  coronation  like  that  of  an 
English  monarch  in  Westminster  Abbey,  no  State  visit 
of  the  monarch  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  In 
Germany  Parliament  goes  to  the  King,  not  the  King 
to  Parliament. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  Emperor  began  his  reign  he 
addressed  proclamations  to  the  army  and  navy.  The 
addresses  to  the  people  and  the  Parliament  were  to  come 
a  few  days  later.  In  the  proclamation  to  the  army  he 
said  :  "  I  and  the  army  were  born  for  each  other.  Let 
us  remain  indissolubly  so  connected,  come  peace  or 

storm,  as  God  may  will.     You  will  now  take  the  oath  of 

69 


70  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

fidelity  and  obedience  to  me,  and  I  swear  always  to 
remember  that  the  eyes  of  my  ancestors  are  bent  on  me 
from  the  other  world,  and  that  one  day  I  shall  have  to 
give  an  account  touching  the  fame  and  the  honour  of  the 
army."  His  address  to  the  navy  was  in  the  same  vein. 
"We  have  only  just  put  off  mourning  for  my  unfor- 
gettable grandfather,  Kaiser  William  I,  and  already  we 
have  had  to  lower  the  flag  for  my  beloved  father,  who 
took  such  an  interest  in  the  growth  and  progress  of  the 
navy.  A  time  of  earnest  and  sincere  sorrow,  however, 
strengthens  the  mind  and  heart  of  man,  and  so  let  us, 
keeping  at  heart  the  example  of  my  grandfather  and 
father,  look  with  confidence  to  the  future.  I  have 
learned  to  appreciate  the  high  sense  of  honour  and  of 
duty  which  lives  in  the  navy,  and  know  that  every  man 
is  ready  faithfully  to  stake  his  life  for  the  honour  of  the 
German  flag,  be  it  where  it  may.  Accordingly  I  can,  in 
this  serious  hour,  feel  fully  assured  that  we  shall  stand 
strongly  and  steadily  together  in  good  or  bad  days,  in 
storm  or  sunshine,  always  mindful  of  the  Fatherland  and 
always  ready  to  shed  our  heart's  blood  for  the  honour  of 
the  flag."  To  his  people  he  promised  that  he  would  be 
a  "just  and  mild  prince,  observant  of  piety  and  religion, 
a  protector  of  peace,  a  promoter  of  the  country's  pros- 
perity, a  helper  to  the  poor  and  needy,  a  faithful  guardian 
of  the  right."  To  the  Parliament  a  week  later  he 
announced  that  he  meant  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  his 
grandfather,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  working  classes, 
to  acquire  the  confidence  of  the  federated  princes,  the 
affection  of  the  people,  and  the  friendly  recognition  of 
foreign  countries.  He  said  that  in  his  opinion  the  "  most 
important  duties  of  the  German  Emperor  lay  in  the 
domain  of  the  military  and  political  security  of  the 
nation  externally,  and  internally  in  the  supervision  of 
the  carrying  out  of  imperial  laws."  The  highest  of  these 
laws,  he  explained,  was  the  Imperial  Constitution  and  "to 


THE    ACCESSION  71 

preserve  and  protect  the  Constitution,  and  in  especial  the 
rights  it  gives  to  the  legislative  bodies,  to  every  German, 
but  also  to  the  Emperor  and  the  federated  states,"  he 
considered  "among  the  most  honourable  duties  of  the 
Emperor." 

While  the  order  of  these  addresses  is  different  to  what 
it  would  be  in  England,  it  entirely  accords  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Prussian  monarchy  and  the  political  system 
of  the  German  people.  Settled  in  the  heart  of  Europe, 
the  nation  rests  on  the  army,  and  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that,  from  the  Emperor's  point  of  view,  possibly 
also  from  the  popular  German  point  of  view,  the  interests 
of  the  army  must  be  considered  before  the  interests  of 
the  rest  of  the  population.  An  English  monarch,  who 
issued  his  first  address  to  the  British  navy,  would  be  as 
justified  in  doing  so  by  the  real  necessities  of  Great 
Britain  as  a  German  Emperor  who  first  addresses  the 
German  army  is  justified  by  the  real  necessities  of 
Germany ;  for  the  British  navy  is  as  vital  to  the  British 
as  the  German  army  is  to  the  German  nation.  In 
England,  however,  the  monarch's  respect  for  the  people 
and  Parliament  takes  precedence  of  his  respect  for  the 
army,  not  vice  versa  as  in  Germany. 

In  a  speech  from  the  throne  to  the  Prussian  Diet 
the  Emperor  took  the  Constitutional  Oath  :  "  I 
swear  to  hold  firmly  and  unbrokenly  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Kingdom  and  to  rule  in  agreement  with 
it  and  the  laws  ...  so  help  me  God  ! "  and  went  on 
to  proclaim  the  continuance  in  Prussia  and  the  Empire 
of  his  grandfather's  and  father's  policy  and  work.  He 
said  at  the  same  time,  while  undertaking  not  to  make  the 
people  uneasy  by  trying  to  extend  Crown  rights,  that 
he  would  take  care  that  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
Crown  were  respected  and  used,  and  that  he  meant 
to  hand  them  over  unimpaired  to  his  successor.  He 
concluded  by  saying  that  he  would  always  bear  in  mind 


72  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

the  words  of  Frederick  the  Great,  who  described  himself 
as  the  "  first  servant  of  the  State." 

At  Frankfurt-on-the-Oder,  a  few  months  later,  he 
declared,  when  unveiling  a  monument  to  his  uncle, 
Prince  Frederick  Karl,  a  hero  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  that  he  meant  never  to  surrender  a  stone  of  the 
acquisitions  made  in  the  war  and  "  believed  he  voiced 
the  feeling  of  the  entire  army  in  saying  that  Germany, 
rather  than  do  so,  would  suffer  its  eighteen  army  corps 
and  its  whole  population  of  42  millions  to  perish  on  the 
field  of  battle." 

At  this  period  of  his  career  the  Emperor  was,  first 
and  foremost,  a  thoroughgoing  Hohenzollern.  Doubt- 
less he  is  so  still,  if  he  talks  less  about  the  dynasty.  He 
admired  Frederick  the  Great,  then  as  now,  and  in  the 
first  place  as  military  commander,  but  the  ancestor  with 
whom  he  even  more  sympathized,  and  sympathizes,  was 
the  Great  Elector.  "  The  ancestor,"  he  said  himself, 
"  for  whom  I  have  the  most  liking  (Schwdrmen,  a  hardly 
translatable  German  verb,  is  the  word  he  used)  and  who 
always  shone  before  me  as  an  example  in  my  youth,  was 
the  Great  Elector,  the  man  who  loved  his  country  with 
all  his  heart  and  strength,  and  unrestingly  devoted 
himself  to  rescuing  the  Mark  Brandenburg  out  of  its 
deep  distress  and  made  it  a  strong  and  united  whole." 
What  particularly  attracted  the  Emperor  in  the  history 
of  the  Elector  was  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  Hohen- 
zollern who  saw  the  importance  of  promoting  trade  and 
industry,  building  a  navy,  and  acquiring  colonies.  As 
yet,  however,  the  Emperor  had  only  clear  and  fairly 
definite  ideas  about  the  need  for  a  navy.  The  world- 
policy  may  have  been  in  embryo  in  his  mind,  but  it  was 
not  born. 

The  imaginative  side  of  the  Emperor's  character  at 
this  period  is  well  illustrated  in  a  speech  he  made  in  1890 
to  his  favourite  "  Men  of  the  Mark."  He  was  talking 


THE   ACCESSION  73 

of  his  travels,  to  which  allusion  had  been  made  by  a 
previous  speaker. 

"  My  travels,"  said  the  Emperor,  "  have  not  only  had 
the  object  of  making  myself  acquainted  with  foreign 
countries  and  institutions,  or  to  create  friendly  relations 
with  neighbouring  monarchs,  but  these  journeys,  which 
have  been  the  subject  of  much  misunderstanding,  had 
for  me  the  great  value  that,  withdrawn  from  the  heat 
of  party  faction,  I  could  review  our  domestic  conditions 
from  a  distance  and  submit  them  to  calm  consideration. 
Any  one  who,  standing  on  a  ship's  bridge  far  out  at  sea, 
with  only  God's  starry  heaven  above  him,  communes 
with  himself,  will  not  fail  to  appreciate  the  worth  of 
such  a  journey.  For  many  of  my  fellow-countrymen 
I  would  wish  that  they  might  live  through  such  an 
hour,  in  which  one  can  make  up  an  account  as  to  what 
he  has  attempted  and  what  achieved.  Then  would  he 
be  cured  of  exaggerated  self-estimation,  and  that  we 
all  need." 

Having  discharged  the  duty  of  addressing  his  own 
subjects,  the  Emperor's  next  care,  after  a  stay  at  Kiel 
where  a  German  Emperor  and  King  now  for  the  first 
time  in  history  appeared  in  the  uniform  of  an  admiral, 
was  personally  to  announce  his  accession  at  the  courts 
of  his  fellow-European  sovereigns.  We  find  him, 
accordingly,  paying  visits  to  Alexander  II  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, to  King  Oscar  II  in  Stockholm  (where  he  received 
a  telegram  announcing  the  birth  of  his  fifth  son),  to 
Christian  IX  in  Copenhagen,  to  Kaiser  Franz  Joseph 
in  Vienna  and  to  King  Humbert  in  Rome.  To  both 
the  last-mentioned  he  presented  himself  in  the  additional 
capacity  of  Triplice  ally. 

In  August  of  the  year  following  his  accession  he  paid 
his  first  visit  as  Emperor  to  England.  It  was  a  very 
different  thing,  one  may  imagine,  from  the  earliest 
recorded  visit  of  a  German  Emperor  to  the  English 


74  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Court.  That  was  in  1416,  when  the  Emperor  Sigismund 
(1411-1437)  arrived  there  and  was  received  by  Henry  V. 
Henry  postponed  the  opening  of  Parliament  specially 
on  his  account,  made  him  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and 
signed  with  him  at  Canterbury  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  against  France.  How  poor  the  German  Empire 
and  the  German  Emperor  were  at  that  epoch  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that  on  his  way  home  Sigismund 
had  to  pawn  the  costly  gifts  he  had  received  in  England. 
On  the  present  occasion  a  grand  naval  review  of  over 
a  hundred  warships,  with  crews  totalling  25,000  men, 
was  held  in  honour  of  the  Emperor  at  Osborne.  This 
was  followed,  a  few  days  afterwards,  by  a  parade  of  the 
troops  at  Aldershot  under  the  command  of  General  Sir 
Evelyn  Wood.  On  this  occasion,  after  expressing  his 
admiration  for  the  British  troops,  the  Emperor  con- 
cluded :  "At  Malplaquet  and  Waterloo,  Prussian  and 
British  blood  flowed  in  the  prosecution  of  a  common 
enterprise."  In  a  little  speech  after  the  review  the 
Emperor  spoke  of  the  English  navy  as  "the  finest  in 
the  world."  The  impression  made  by  the  Emperor  on 
Sir  Evelyn  has  been  recorded  by  that  general.  "The 
Emperor  is  extremely  wide-awake,"  he  writes  to  a  friend, 
"with  a  decided,  straightforward  manner.  He  is  a  good 
rider.  His  quick  and  very  intelligent  spirit  seizes  every 
detail  at  a  glance,  and  he  possesses  a  wonderful  memory." 
The  Emperor  was  now  nominated  an  honorary  Admiral 
of  the  British  navy  and  as  a  return  compliment  made 
Queen  Victoria  honorary  "  Chef "  of  his  own  First 
Dragoon  Guards.  At  the  naval  review  a  journalist  asked 
an  English  naval  officer  what  would  happen  if  the 
Emperor,  in  command  of  a  German  fleet,  should  meet 
a  British  fleet  in  time  of  war  between  England  and 
Germany  ? — "  Would  the  British  fleet  have  to  salute 
the  Emperor  ?  "  "  Certainly,"  replied  the  naval  officer  ; 
"  it  would  fire  100  guns  at  him." 


THE    ACCESSION  75 

Next  year  the  Emperor  was  again  in  England,  this 
time  to  be  present  at  the  Covves  regatta,  which  he  took 
part  in  regularly  during  the  four  succeeding  years,  noting, 
doubtless,  all  that  might  prove  useful  for  the  development 
of  the  Kiel  yachting  "  week,"  the  success  of  which  he 
had  then,  as  always  since,  particularly  at  heart.  He  was 
received  by  Queen  Victoria  with  the  simple  and  homely 
words,  "Welcome,  William  !  " 

A  State  visit  to  the  City  of  London  followed,  when  he 
was  accompanied  by  the  Empress,  and  was  entertained 
to  a  luncheon  given  by  the  City  Fathers  in  the  Guild- 
hall. The  entertainment,  which  took  place  on  July  10, 
1891,  was  remarkable  for  a  speech  delivered  by  the 
Emperor  in  English,  in  which,  besides  declaring  his 
intention  of  maintaining  the  "  historical  friendship " 
between  England  and  Germany,  he  proclaimed  that  his 
great  object  "  above  all "  was  the  preservation  of  peace, 
"since  peace  alone  can  inspire  that  confidence  which 
is  requisite  for  a  healthy  development  of  science,  art, 
and  commerce."  On  the  same  occasion  he  expressed 
his  feeling  of  "  being  at  home  "  in  England — "  this 
delightful  country " — and  spoke  of  the  "  same  blood 
which  flows  alike  in  the  veins  of  Germans  and  English." 
Shortly  afterwards  he  attended  a  review  of  volunteers 
at  Wimbledon,  and,  as  he  said,  was  "  agreeably 
astonished  at  the  spectacle  of  so  many  citizen-soldiers 
in  a  country  that  had  no  conscription." 

The  Emperor  returned  from  England  to  receive  the 
visit  of  his  chief  Triplice  ally,  the  Emperor  Franz  Joseph, 
and  to  discuss  with  him  doubtless  the  European  situa- 
tion. Bismarck  has  been  pictured  as  sitting  at  the 
European  chessboard  pondering  the  moves  necessary 
for  Germany  to  win  the  game  of  which  the  great  prize 
was  the  hegemony  of  Europe.  The  chief  opposing 
pieces,  whose  aid  or  neutrality  was  desirable,  were  for 
long  France,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Italy  ;  but  in  1883, 


76  WILLIAM  OF   GERMANY 

with  the  conclusion  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  Austria  and 
Italy  needed  less  to  be  considered,  and  the  only  two  really 
important  opposing  pieces  left  were  France  and  Russia. 
Still,  Germany,  through  her  allies  of  the  Triplice,  might 
be  dragged  into  war,  and  consequently  the  doings  of 
Austria  and  Italy,  both  in  relation  to  one  another  and 
to  France  and  Russia  were,  as  they  now  are,  of  great 
importance  to  her. 

At  the  time  of  the  accession,  the  chessboard  of  our 
metaphor  was  mainly  occupied  with  Franco-German 
relations  and  with  Russian  designs  on  Constantinople, 
the  Dardanelles,  and  the  Black  Sea.  The  danger  to 
Germany  of  war  with  France,  which  had  arisen  out  of 
the  Boulanger  and  Schnaebele  incidents,  had  died  down, 
but  not  altogether  ceased.  Hohenlohe  tells  us  how  at 
this  time,  in  conversation  with  the  Emperor,  the  latter 
ventured  the  forecast :  "  Boulanger  is  sure  to  succeed. 
I  prophesy  that  as  Kaiser  Ernest  he  will  pay  a  visit 
to  Berlin."  He  was  wrong,  we  know,  as  so  many 
prophets  are. 

Russian  designs  on  Turkey  had  had  to  reckon  with 
the  opposition  of  England  and  Austria.  As  regards  these 
designs,  Bismarck  says:  "Germany's  policy  should  be 
one  of  reserve.  Germany  would  act  very  foolishly  if  in 
Oriental  questions,  without  having  special  interests,  she 
took  a  side  before  the  other  Powers,  who  were  more 
nearly  interested  :  she  would  therefore  do  well  to  refrain 
from  making  her  move  as  long  as  possible,  and  thus, 
besides,  gain  the  benefit  of  longer  peace."  The  Chan- 
cellor, however,  admitted  that  against  the  advantages 
of  a  policy  of  reserve  had  to  be  set  the  disadvantage 
of  Germany's  position  in  the  centre  of  Europe  with  its 
frontiers  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  a  coalition.  "  From 
this  situation,"  said  the  Chancellor,  "  it  results  that 
Germany  is  perhaps  the  only  Great  Power  in  Europe 
which  is  not  tempted  to  attain  its  ends  by  victorious  war.'' 


THE    ACCESSION  77 

"  Our  interest,"  he  goes  on,  "  is  to  maintain  peace,  whereas 
our  continental  neighbours  without  exception  have 
wishes,  either  secret  or  officially  admitted,  which  can 
only  be  fulfilled  through  war.  Consequently,  German 
policy  must  be  to  prevent  war  or  confine  it  as  much 
as  possible :  to  keep  in  the  background  while  the 
European  game  of  cards  is  going  on  :  and  not  by  loss 
of  patience  or  concession  at  the  cost  of  the  country, 
or  vanity,  or  provocation  from  friends,  allow  ourselves 
to  be  driven  from  the  waiting  attitude  :  otherwise — 
plectuntur  Achivi ! — third  parties  will  rejoice."  That 
was  the  Bismarckian  policy  twenty-five  years  ago,  and 
though  new  economic  conditions  have  had  great 
influence  in  modifying  it  since,  particularly  as  it 
regards  the  East,  it  is  practically  Germany's  policy 
now. 

In  his  first  speech  from  the  throne  to  the  Reichstag 
the  Emperor  thus  referred  to  the  Triple  Alliance  :  "  Our 
Alliance  with  Austria- Hungary  is  publicly  known.  I 
hold  to  the  same  with  German  fidelity,  not  merely  be- 
cause it  has  been  concluded,  but  because  I  see  in  this 
defensive  union  a  foundation  for  the  balance  of  power  in 
Europe  and  a  legacy  of  German  history,  the  importance 
of  which  is  recognized  by  the  whole  of  the  German 
people,  while  it  accords  with  European  international  law 
as  undeniably  in  force  up  to  1866.  Similar  historical 
relations  and  similar  national  exigences  of  the  time  bind 
us  to  Italy.  Both  Germany  and  Italy  desire  to  prolong 
the  blessings  of  peace  that  they  may  pursue  in  tranquillity 
the  consolidation  of  their  newly  acquired  unity,  the 
betterment  of  their  national  institutions,  and  the  increase 
of  their  prosperity."  In  a  speech  a  few  months  later  he 
declared  that  the  Alliance  had  no  other  purpose  than  to 
strengthen  the  peaceful  relations  of  Germany  to  other 
foreign  Powers.  His  next  public  reference  to  it  was  in 
May,  1900,  when  Kaiser  Franz  Joseph  visited  Berlin  on 


78  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

the  occasion  of  the  coming  of  age  of  the  German  Crown 
Prince.  "Truly,"  exclaimed  the  Emperor,  in  a  vein  of 
some  exaggeration,  "  this  Alliance  is  not  alone  an  agree- 
ment in  the  eyes  of  the  monarchs,  but  the  longer  it  has 
existed,  the  deeper  has  it  taken  root  in  the  convictions  of 
the  peoples,  and  the  moment  that  the  hearts  of  the  peoples 
beat  in  unison  nothing  can  tear  them  asunder.  Common 
interests,  common  feelings,  joy  and  sorrow  shared  to- 
gether, unite  our  three  nations  for  now  twenty  years,  and 
although  often  enough  misunderstandings  and  sarcasm 
and  criticisms  have  been  poured  out  on  them,  the  three 
peoples  have  succeeded  in  maintaining  peace  hitherto, 
and  are  regarded  by  the  whole  world  as  its  champions." 
The  history  of  the  Triplice  may  be  shortly  related  here 
as,  along  with  his  navy,  it  is  regarded  by  the  Emperor  as 
the  chief  factor  in  the  preservation  of  the  world's  peace, 
and  is,  in  fact,  as  has  been  said,  the  foundation  of  his 
foreign  policy.  It  arose  from  Bismarck's  desire  to  be 
independent  of  Russia  and  from  his  dread  of  a  European 
coalition  —  for  example,  that  of  France,  Austria,  and 
Russia  —  against  the  German  Empire.  "  We  had," 
Bismarck  writes,  "  carried  on  successful  war  against  two 
of  the  European  Great  Powers  (Austria  and  France),  and 
it  became  advisable  to  withdraw  at  least  one  of  them 
from  the  temptation  to  revenge  which  lay  in  the  prospect 
an  alliance  with  others  offered.  It  could  not  be  France, 
as  any  one  who  knew  the  history  and  temperament  of 
the  two  peoples  could  see,  nor  England  owing  to  her 
dislike  of  permanent  alliances,  nor  Italy  as  her  support 
alone  was  insufficient  against  an  anti-German  coalition  ;  so 
that  the  choice  lay  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia." 
For  many  reasons  Bismarck  would  have  preferred  the 
Russian  alliance,  among  others  the  traditional  dynastic 
friendship  between  the  two  countries  and  the  fact  that 
no  natural  political  or  religious  causes  of  conflict  existed 
between  them ;  while  a  union  with  Austria  was  less 


THE   ACCESSION  79 

reliable,  owing  to  the  changeable  nature  of  her  public 
opinion,  the  heterogeneousness  of  her  Magyar,  Slav,  and 
Catholic  populations,  and  the  loss  of  influence  by  the 
German  element  with  the  governing  body.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  an  alliance  with  Austria  would  be  nothing 
new,  internationally,  as  such  a  connection  theoretically 
arose  from  the  former  connection  of  Germany  and 
Austria  in  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  While  weighing 
the  matter,  a  threatening  letter  from  Czar  Alexander  II 
to  William  I,  in  which  he  called  on  Germany  to  support 
his  Balkan  policy,  and  said  that  if  he  refused  peace  could 
not  last  between  their  two  countries,  decided  Bismarck 
in  favour  of  Austria.  The  chief  opponent  of  the  new 
Alliance  was  William  I,  who  was  moved  by  personal 
chivalric  feelings  towards  his  nephew,  Czar  Alexander  ; 
but,  disregarding  this,  because  confident  of  eventually 
persuading  his  imperial  master,  Bismarck  went  to  Gastein 
and  there  settled  with  the  Austrian  Minister,  Count 
Andrassy,  the  principles  of  the  Alliance.  Italy  came  into 
the  Alliance  in  1883  as  the  immediate  result  of  France 
obtaining  a  protectorate  in  Tunis,  in  return,  partly,  for 
her  acquiescence  in  the  English  acquisition  of  Cyprus. 
The  protectorate  aroused  general  indignation  and  fear  in 
Italy,  and  though  it  meant  a  large  expenditure  on  naval 
and  military  armament,  on  May  20,  1882,  she  joined  the 
Dual  Alliance  for  five  years,  and  thus  turned  it  into  the 
Triplice. 

The  Triple  Alliance  rests  on  three  treaties  :  one  between 
Germany  and  Austria- Hungary,  one  between  Germany 
and  Italy,  and  one  between  Austria- Hungary  and  Italy. 
While  by  the  first  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  bind 
themselves  to  combine  in  case  of  an  attack  on  either  by 
Russia,  whether  as  original  foe  or  as  ally,  and  to  observe 
"at  least"  benevolent  neutrality  in  case  of  attack  from 
any  other  quarter,  by  the  second  Germany  and  Italy 
bind  themselves  to  mutual  support  in  case  of  an  attack 


8o  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

on  either  by  France.  The  third,  between  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Italy,  binds  the  signatories  to  benevolent 
neutrality  in  case  Austria-Hungary  is  attacked  by  Russia, 
or  Italy  by  France. 

That  there  are  weak  points  in  the  Triple  Alliance  is 
obvious.  If  Austria-Hungary  were  a  purely  homogeneous 
country  like  France  or  Russia,  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary,  even  without  Italy,  could  face  with  confidence 
an  attack  from  either  or  both  their  powerful  neighbours. 
But  Austria-Hungary  is  not  homogeneous.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  her  population  is  anti-German,  or  at  least 
non-German,  and  Italy  is  always  subject  to  be  tempted 
by  an  opportunity  of  obtaining  some  of  Austria- Hungary's 
Adriatic  possessions.  Moreover,  a  large  party  is  even 
now  to  be  found  in  Austria- Hungary  which  desires 
revenge  for  the  humiliation  of  her  defeat  by  Germany 
in  1866. 

The  relations  of  Germany  to  Russia  have  always  been 
rather  those  of  friendship  between  the  monarchs  of  the 
two  countries  than  of  friendship  between  the  two 
peoples  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  fear  of 
revolution,  Socialism,  or  "  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people,"  to  use  Lincoln's  celebrated 
phrase,  at  all  times  forms  a  strong  and  active  bond  of 
sympathy  between  the  monarchs.  In  the  case  of  Russia 
there  is  also  always  to  be  considered  the  obstinate,  or  as 
the  Emperor  would  call  it  knightly,  spirit  in  which  his 
grandfather,  King  William  I,  regarded  his  obligation  to 
maintain  friendship  with  the  Czar,  and  which  for  a  long 
time  made  him  hostile  to  the  idea  of  alliance  with 
Austria  instead  of  alliance  with  Russia.  The  feeling,  it 
is  highly  probable,  is  strong,  if  not  equally  strong,  in  the 
mind  of  the  Emperor  to-day,  if  only  out  of  respect  for 
the  memory  of  his  ancestor.  There  is  not,  to  use  a 
popular  expression,  much  love  lost  between  the  two 
peoples,  not  only  because  of  racial  differences  between 


THE   ACCESSION  81 

Teuton  and  Slav,  but  because  of  the  differences  in  religion 
and  in  degree  of  civilization.  There  are  not  a  few  Germans 
who  assert  that  Germany's  next  war  will  be  with  Russia, 
and  that  from  the  dominions  of  the  Czar  will  be  obtained 
the  fresh  territory  Germany  needs  for  her  constantly 
expanding  population. 

The  Czar  returned  the  Emperor's  accession  visit  in 
Berlin  in  October,  1889,  and  it  was  on  this  occasion  that 
the  first  sign  of  trouble  between  the  Emperor  and  the 
old  Chancellor  showed  itself.  When  the  Emperor  first 
proposed  to  make  his  round  of  visits  of  accession  to 
foreign  sovereigns,  Bismarck  agreed  except  as  regarded 
Russia  and  England,  objecting  that  visits  to  these 
countries  would  have  an  alternatively  bad  effect  in  each. 
The  Emperor,  however,  as  has  been  noted,  went  to 
Russia.  During  the  return  visit  in  Berlin,  Bismarck  had 
an  interview  with  the  Czar  which  resulted  in  the  final 
adjustment  of  Russo-German  relations,  but  at  its  close 
the  Czar  said,  "  Yes,  I  believe  you  and  have  confidence 
in  you,  but  are  you  sure  you  will  remain  in  office  ? " 
Bismarck  looked  surprised,  and  said,  "  Certainly, 
Majesty  ;  I  am  quite  certain  I  shall  remain  in  office  all 
my  life  " — an  odd  thing,  one  may  remark,  for  a  man  to 
say,  who  must  have  been  familiar  with  the  saying,  "  Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes." 

When  the  Czar  was  going  away,  both  the  Emperor  and 
Bismarck  accompanied  him  to  the  station,  and  on  their 
return  the  Emperor  gave  the  old  Chancellor  a  seat  in  his 
carriage.  The  talk  concerned  the  visit  just  over,  and  the 
Emperor  again  announced  his  intention  of  spending  some 
time  in  Russia  the  following  year.  Bismarck  now  advised 
against  the  project  on  the  ground  that  it  would  arouse 
hostility  in  Austria,  and  because  "it  was  not  suitable 
considering  the  Czar's  disposition  towards  the  Emperor." 

"  What  disposition  ?  What  do  you  mean  ?  How 
do  you  know  ?  "  questioned  the  Emperor  quickly. 


82  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

"  From  confidential  letters  I  am  in  the  habit  of  receiv- 
ing from  St.  Petersburg,  in  addition  to  official  reports," 
replied  the  Chancellor. 

The  Emperor  expressed  a  wish  to  see  the  letters,  but 
Bismarck  gave  an  evasive  answer.  The  result  was  a 
temporary  coolness  between  Emperor  and  Chancellor. 

From  a  memorandum  of  Prince  Hohenlohe's  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  one  of  the  political  currents  and  anti-currents 
just  now  running  high.  Prince  Hohenlohe  writes  under 
date,  June  27,  1888,  when  the  Emperor  was  hardly  a 
fortnight  on  the  throne  : — 

"Last  evening  at  8  left  Berlin  with  Thaden  after 
supping  with  Victor  and  Franz  (son  and  nephew)  in  the 
Kaiserhof  Hotel.  Paid  several  visits  during  the  day.  I 
found  Friedberg  somewhat  depressed.  He  is  no  longer 
the  big  man  he  was  in  the  Emperor  Frederick's  time, 
when  everybody  courted  him.  He  knows  that  the 
Emperor  does  not  favour  Jews.  Then  I  visited  the  new 
chief  of  the  Cabinet  (civil),  Lucanus,  a  courtly,  polished, 
obliging  man,  who  looks  more  like  an  elegant  Austrian 
privy  councillor.  Wilmoski  inspires  me  with  more 
confidence.  At  5  to  Bleichroeder's  (Bleichroeder  was  the 
great  Jew  banker).  We  spoke,  or  rather  he  spoke  first, 
about  the  political  situation.  He  is  satisfied,  and  says 
Bismarck  is  too.  Only  the  Emperor  must  take  care  to 
keep  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Orthodox.  People  in  the 
country  wouldn't  stand  that.  (He  is  right  there,  com- 
ments Hohenlohe.)  Waldersee  and  his  followers,  he 
said,  was  another  danger.  Waldersee  was  a  foe  of 
Bismarck's  and  thought  himself  fit  for  anything  and 
everything.  Who  knows  but  that  these  gentlemen 
wouldn't  begin  the  old  game  and  say  to  the  Emperor, 
1  You  are  simply  nothing  but  a  doll.  Bismarck  is  the 
real  ruler.'  On  the  old  Emperor  this  would  have  made 
no  impression,  but  the  young  one  would  be  more 
sensitive.  Bismarck,  therefore,  wanted  Waldersee's 


THE    ACCESSION  83 

banishment,  and  would,  if  he  could,  send  him  to 
Strasburg  (where  Hohenlohe  was  Statthalter)  as  com- 
manding general.  Perhaps  he  was  only  aiming  at 
making  me  (Hohenlohe)  sick  of  my  post  and  so  get  rid 
of  Waldersee,  his  enemy,  when  I  cleared  out.  Bleich- 
roeder  said  Bismarck  only  introduced  the  compulsory 
pass  system  to  show  the  Emperor  that  he  too  could  act 
sharply  against  the  French,  and  so  as  to  take  the  wind 
out  of  the  sails  of  the  military  party.  Bismarck  was 
thinking  above  all  about  seating  his  son  Herbert  firmly  in 
the  saddle  (Herbert  was  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs).  That  is  the  sole  motive  of  his  action  and 
thought.  There  was  therefore  no  prospect  of  matters  in 
the  Rhineland  improving.  As  to  Russia,  Bleichroeder 
expected  some  occurrence,  something  out  of  the  way 
(exotisches)  by  which  Russia  might  be  won,  either  the 
withdrawal  of  troops  from  the  frontier  or  a  meeting  of 
Emperors.  The  Emperor,  Bismarck  said,  would  not 
begin  a  war.  If  it  came,  however,  it  would  not  be 
unwelcome  to  him." 

Prince  Hohenlohe  also  tells  of  a  visit  he  paid  in  the 
month  of  the  accession  to  the  widowed  Empress 
Frederick.  "  She  is  much  bowed  down,"  he  said,  "  very 
harassed-looking,  and  I  feel  sure  that  all  this  recent  time, 
all  the  last  year  in  fact,  she  has  been  displaying  an 
artificial  good-humour,  for  now  I  find  her  in  deep 
distress.  At  first  she  could  not  speak  for  weeping.  We 
spoke  of  the  Emperor  Frederick's  last  days,  then  she 
recovered  herself  a  little  and  complained  of  the  wicked- 
ness and  meanness  of  men,  by  which  she  meant  to  allude 
to  certain  people.  .  .  .  Herbert  Bismarck  had  had  the 
impudence  to  tell  the  Prince  of  Wales  (later  Edward  VII 
that  an  Emperor  who  could  not  talk  and  discuss  things 
should  not  be  allowed  to  reign,  and  so  on.  The  Prince 
of  Wales,  the  Empress  said,  told  Herbert  that  if  it  were 
not  that  he  valued  good  relations  between  England  and 


84  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Germany,  he  would  have  thrown  him  out  of  the  door. 
.  .  .  Waldersee  was  a  false,  unprincipled  wretch,  who 
would  think  nothing  of  ruining  his  country  if  he  could 
only  satisfy  his  own  personal  ambition."  Prince 
Hohenlohe  finally  called  on  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who 
"  spoke  prudently,  but  showed  his  disgust  at  the  rough- 
ness of  the  Bismarcks,  and  could  not  understand  their 
policy  of  irritating  France." 

The  particular  question  concerning  France  that  was 
agitating  Germany  at  the  time  of  the  accession  was  the 
state  of  affairs  in  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  particularly 
Bismarck's  measure  requiring  French  citizens  entering 
the  provinces  to  provide  themselves  with  a  pass  from  the 
German  Ambassador  in  Paris.  The  amiable  and  con- 
ciliatory Statthalter,  Prince  Hohenlohe,  had  to  make  a 
reluctant  journey  to  Berlin  in  connexion  with  this 
question.  There  was  another  question  also  weighing  on 
his  mind — the  question  whether  or  not  he  should  have  a 
sentry  guard  before  his  official  residence  in  Strasburg. 
The  military  authorities,  whose  rivalry  with  the  civil 
authorities  everywhere  in  Germany  for  influence  and 
power  still  continues,  wanted  to  have  the  sentries 
abolished,  but  the  Prince  eventually  had  his  way.  He 
showed  Bismarck  that  they  were  necessary  for  his  reputa- 
tion with  the  population,  which  had  already  begun  to 
think  less  of  his  influence  as  Statthalter  owing  to  his  one 
day  at  a  review  having  incautiously  and  gallantly  taken  a 
back  seat  in  his  carriage  in  favour  of  some  lady  guests. 

In  normal  times  the  composers  of  speeches  from 
the  throne  are  accustomed  to  describe  the  relations 
between  their  own  and  foreign  countries  as  "  friendly." 
When  the  relations  are  not  friendly,  yet  not  the 
opposite,  they  are  usually  registered  on  the  political 
barometer  as  "correct."  The  attitude  on  both  sides 
is  formal,  rigorously  polite,  reserved ;  such  as  would 
become  a  pair  of  people  who  had  once  been  at 


THE   ACCESSION  85 

feud  and  after  their  quarrel  had  been  fought  out 
agreed,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  appearances,  to  show 
no  outward  animosity,  but  on  the  other  hand  not  give 
an  inch  of  way.  The  position  of  France  and  Germany 
is  "correct";  it  has  never  been  friendly  since  1870; 
and  it  must  be  many  a  long  year  before  it  can  be 
friendly  again.  Apart  from  the  difference  between  the 
Latin  and  Teutonic  temperaments,  apart  from  the  legacy 
of  hate  left  in  Germany  against  France  by  the  sufferings 
and  humiliations  the  great  Napoleon  caused  her,  apart 
from  the  fact  that  one  people  is  republican  and  the  other 
monarchical,  there  is  always  one  thing  that  will  prevent 
reconciliation — the  loss  by  France  of  the  fair  provinces 
Alsace  and  Lorraine.  It  is  of  no  use  for  Germany  to 
remind  France  that  up  to  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  in 
1648  this  territory  belonged  to  Germany,  or  rather  to 
what  then  was  known  by  that  name.  It  was  useless  as 
well  as  ungracious  for  Bismarck  to  tell  France  to  seek 
compensation  in  Africa  for  what  she  had  lost  in  Europe. 
Like  Rachel  mourning  for  her  children,  France  will  not 
be  comforted ;  and  now,  as  from  the  heavy  hour  in 
which  she  lost  the  provinces,  she  grieves  over  the 
memory  of  them  and  nurses  the  hope,  still  mingled  with 
hate,  of  one  glorious  day  regaining  them.  There  are 
sanguine  spirits  who  assert  that  the  old  feeling  is  dying 
out,  and  the  German  Government  studiously  encourages 
that  view.  It  may  be  so  ;  time  is  having  its  obliterating 
effects ;  and  in  externals  at  least  the  Germanization  of 
the  provinces  is  slowly  making  progress.  Still  the 
wound  is  deep,  and  there  seems  no  prospect  of  its  healing. 
Several  suggestions  have  been  made  with  a  view  to  an 
arrangement  that  might  leave  France  without  reason,  or 
with  less  reason,  for  constant  meditation  on  revenge 
One  of  them  is  the  neutralization  of  Alsace-Lorraine  on 
the  model  of  Belgium,  while  another  is  the  distribution 
of  the  territory,  so  that  while  Alsace  is  divided  between 


86  WILLIAM   OF    GERMANY 

Baden  and  Bavaria,  Lorraine  becomes  a  part  of  Prussia 
A  third  would  divide  the  provinces  between  the  two 
nations.  An  illustration  of  the  yet  prevailing  feeling  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  large  Alsatian  firms  invariably  use 
French  in  their  correspondence  with  Berlin  firms,  and 
almost  as  invariably  refer  to  the  "  customs-arrangement" 
with  Germany  in  1871.  They  cannot  bring  themselves  to 
use  the  word  "annexation." 

Yet  of  late  years — to  anticipate  somewhat  the  course  of 
events — Germany  has  made  two  important  concessions  to 
Alsace-Lorraine.  The  first  was  the  abrogation  of  the  so- 
called  "  Dictator-Paragraph,"  which  was  part  of  the  law 
for  administering  the  new  provinces  after  the  war  of  1870. 
Under  the  paragraph  the  Lieutenant-Governor  (Ober- 
president)  of  the  Reichsland,  as  the  newly  incorporated 
territory  is  now  officially  known,  was  empowered  in  case 
of  need  to  take  command  of  the  military  forces  and  pro- 
claim a  state  of  siege.  When  announcing  the  abrogation 
of  the  Paragraph  in  the  Reichstag  in  1902,  Chancellor 
von  Biilow  gave  a  resume  of  the  relations  of  the 
provinces  to  the  Empire  since  1870.  He  stated  that 
immediately  after  the  war  the  population  were  not 
disposed  to  incorporation  in  the  Empire,  as  they  thought 
the  new  state  of  things  would  only  be  temporary  and 
that  France  would  soon  reconquer  the  provinces.  This 
state  of  feeling,  the  Chancellor  explained,  naturally 
reacted  on  the  Government,  which  accordingly  laid  down 
the  principle  that  the  claims  of  the  provinces  to  equal 
political  rights  with  other  parts  of  the  Empire  could  only 
be  recognized  step  by  step,  as  the  Government  was 
satisfied  that  the  population  conformed  to  the  new  order 
of  things. 

The  second  important  concession  to  the  Provinces 
was  made  only  recently,  when  the  provincial  committee 
was  replaced  by  a  popularly  elected  Diet  and  the  Pro- 
vinces were  granted  three  seats  in  the  Federal  Council. 


THE   ACCESSION  87 

There  is  a  proviso  that  in  case  of  equality  in  the  Council 
meetings  the  votes  shall  not  be  allowed  to  turn  the  scale 
in  favour  of  Prussia.  The  limitation  is  a  concession 
to  the  susceptibilities  of  the  other  Federal  states. 

Germany's  relations  with  Great  Britain  at  the  time  of 
the  accession  were  unclouded.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been 
defeated  on  his  Home  Rule  proposals  and  Lord  Salisbury 
was  back  in  power.  A  lull  had  occurred  in  British 
relations  with  the  Transvaal.  All  nations,  including 
Germany,  were  beginning  to  turn  their  attention  to  the 
Orient  with  a  view  to  the  acquisition  in  Asia  of  "  spheres 
of  influence  and  spheres  of  interest,"  but  as  yet  English 
and  German  interests  had  not  come  anywhere  into 
conflict. 

The  Emperor's  great  internal  foe  and  the  object  of  his 
special  enmity  is  the  Social  Democracy,  and  practically 
from  the  day  of  his  accession  he  has  waged  war  with  it. 
His  attitude  towards  the  Socialists  requires  no  long 
description,  since  it  logically  results  from  his  traditional 
conception  of  Prussian  monarchy  and  from  the  revolu- 
tionary character  of  Social  Democratic  aims.  While  a 
young  man  he  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  the  movement, 
and  probably  regarded  it  as  the  "  passing  phenomenon  " 
he  subsequently  declared  it  to  be.  In  1884  the  number 
of  Social  Democratic  voters  was  something  over  half  a 
million,  and  the  number  of  Social  Democratic  members 
returned  to  the  Reichstag  25  :  in  1890,  two  years  after 
the  accession,  the  figures  were  a  million  and  a  half  and 
35,  respectively. 

The  Emperor's  denunciation  of  Social  Democrats  has 
always  been  unmeasured.  "A  crew  undeserving  the 
name  of  Germans,"  a  "  plague  that  must  be  extirpated," 
"traitors,"  "people  without  a  country  and  enemies  to 
religion,"  "  foes  to  the  Empire  and  the  country  " — such 
were  a  few  of  the  expressions  he  then  and  during  the 
next  few  years  publicly  applied  to  three  millions  of  his 


88  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

subjects.  To-day,  it  may  be  added,  the  number  of  Social 
Democrats  in  Germany  is  well  over  four  millions. 

In  1889,  in  reply  to  a  deputation  of  three  coal  miners' 
representatives,  the  Emperor  said :  "  As  regards  your 
demands,  I  will  have  them  carefully  investigated  (a  phrase, 
by  the  way,  not  unknown  in  England)  by  my  Govern- 
ment, and  let  you  know  the  result  through  the  usual 
official  channels.  Should,  however,  offences  against 
public  peace  and  order  occur,  should  a  connexion 
between  your  movement  and  Social  Democratic  circles 
be  demonstrated,  I  would  not  be  in  a  position  to  weigh 
your  wishes  with  my  royal  goodwill,  since  for  me  every 
Social  Democrat  is  the  same  thing  as  a  foe  to  the  Empire 
and  the  Fatherland.  Accordingly,  if  I  see  that  Social 
Democratic  tendencies  mix  with  the  movement  and  lead 
to  unlawful  opposition,  I  will  intervene  with  all  my 
powers — and  they  are  great." 

And  a  month  later  :  "  That  the  Radical  agitation  of  the 
Social  Democracy  has  turned  so  many  heads  and  hearts  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  in  schools,  high  and  low,  too  little  is 
taught  about  the  cruel  deeds  of  the  French  Revolution 
and  too  little  about  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  War  of  Libera- 
tion, which  was  (with  the  help  of  English  bayonets,  be  it 
parenthetically  remarked)  the  salvation  of  the  Father- 
land. 

In  1892,  to  anticipate  by  a  year  or  two,  in  reply  to  a 
guest  who  had  observed  that  Social  Democrats  were  not 
decreasing  in  numbers,  the  Emperor  remarked  :  "  The 
moment  the  Social  Democracy  feels  itself  in  possession  of 
power  it  will  not  hesitate  for  an  instant  to  attack  the 
Burghertum  (middle  classes)  very  energetically.  No 
exhibition  of  general  benevolence  is  of  any  use  against 
these  people — here  only  religious  feeling,  founded  on 
decided  faith,  can  have  any  influence." 

The  Emperor,  referring  to  the  murder  of  a  manu- 
facturer in  Mulhausen,  said :  "  Another  victim  to  the 


THE    ACCESSION  89 

revolutionary  movement  kept  alive  by  the  Socialists.  If 
only  our  people  would  act  like  men  ! " 

And  yet  it  is  obvious,  looking  at  it  from  the  standpoint  of 
to-day,  that  an  admirably  organized  movement  with  four 
million  parliamentary  voters  in  an  electorate  of  fourteen 
millions,  with  no  members  in  an  Imperial  Parliament  of 
397,  with  representatives,  more  or  less  numerous,  on 
almost  every  municipal  board  of  any  importance  in  the 
Empire,  with  the  power  of  disturbing  at  any  moment 
the  relations  between  capital  and  labour,  upon  which 
the  prosperity,  security,  and  comfort  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation depend,  and  in  intimate  relations  with  the  Socialists 
of  all  other  countries,  cannot  be  merely  ignored  or  dis- 
posed of  by  scornful  and  sarcastic  speeches,  by  official 
anathema,  or  even  by  close  police  supervision.  There 
must  be  something  behind  it  all  which  ought  to  be  sus- 
ceptible of  explanation. 

Before,  however,  attempting  to  conjecture  what  the 
something  is,  it  will  be  advisable,  familiar  to  many 
though  the  facts  must  be,  to  recapitulate,  as  briefly 
as  possible,  the  history  of  the  movement.  Old  as 
the  story  is,  it  is  necessary  to  have  some  knowledge  of  it, 
for  Social  Democracy  is  the  great,  perhaps  the  only, 
domestic  political  thorn  in  the  Emperor's  side. 

It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  the  "  social  question,"  the 
question  how  best  to  organize  society,  is  as  old  as  society 
itself.  Great  thinkers  all  down  the  ages,  from  Plato  to 
Sir  Thomas  More,  from  More  to  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau, 
from  Rousseau  to  Saint  Simon,  Fourier,  Louis  Blanc, 
Lassalle,  and  Karl  Marx,  have  devoted  their  attention  to 
it.  The  French  Revolutionists  tried  to  solve  it,  and  the 
revolutionary  movement  of  1848  took  up  the  problem  in 
its  turn. 

German  Social  Democracy  may  be  referred  for  its  source 
to  the  teachings  of  Louis  Blanc,  who  formed  in  1840  a 
workmen's  society  in  Paris.  Blanc  held,  as  the  Social 


90  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Democrats  hold,  that  capitalism  was  the  cause  of  all  social 
evil,  and  that  the  workman  was  powerless  against  it. 
He  therefore  proposed  the  establishment  of  workmen's 
societies  for  purposes  of  production,  and  the  grant  of  the 
necessary  capital  at  a  low  rate  of  interest  by  the  State.  The 
doctrine  was  taken  up  in  Germany  with  fiery  enthusiasm 
by  Ferdinand  Lassalle,  who,  in  May,  1863,  founded  the 
General  German  Workmen's  Society  for  a  "peaceful, 
lawful  agitation  "  in  favour  of  universal  suffrage  as  a  first 
means  to  the  desired  end.  Universal  suffrage  was  granted 
by  the  North  German  Confederation  in  1867,  and  in  1873 
Lassalle's  adherents  numbered  60,000. 

Meanwhile,  Karl  Marx  and  his  disciple,  Frederic 
Engels,  had  been  propagating  their  theories,  and  in  1848 
the  former  published  his  famous  work  on  the  ideal  social 
state.  At  first  Marx  was  a  partizan  of  revolutionary 
methods,  but  he  subsequently  recanted  this  view  and 
proclaimed  that  the  Socialistic  aim  in  future  should  be  the 
"  strengthening  of  the  economic  and  political  power  of 
the  workman  so  that  the  expropriation  of  private  property 
could  be  obtained  by  legislation."  The  Marxian  doctrine 
was  adopted  in  Germany  by  Wilhelm  Liebknecht  and 
August  Rebel,  who,  at  Eisenach  in  1869,  founded  the 
Association  of  Social  Democratic  Workmen,  to  which  the 
present  German  party  owes  its  name.  The  Eisenach 
programme  declared  "the  economic  dependence  of  the 
workmen  on  the  monopolists  of  the  tools  of  labour  the 
foundation  of  servitude  and  social  evil,"  and  demanded 
"  the  economic  emancipation  of  the  working  classes." 
An  attempt  to  get  the  Lassalle  society  to  join  the 
Eisenacher  society  on  an  international  basis  failed  for 
the  time,  but  the  two  associations  finally  coalesced  at 
the  Gotha  Congress  of  1875. 

The  attempt  on  the  life  of  William  I  in  1878  by  the 
anarchist  Nobiling  had  an  important  effect  on  the  for- 
tunes of  the  party  and  the  character  of  its  programme. 


THE   ACCESSION  91 

The  Socialist  Laws  were  passed  and  the  police  began  a 
campaign  against  the  Socialists,  of  which  the  mildest 
features  were  the  dissolution  of  societies,  the  searching  of 
houses,  the  expulsion  of  suspected  persons,  and  the  inter- 
diction of  Socialist  newspapers  and  periodicals. 

For  the  next  few  years  the  party  held  its  annual  con- 
gresses in  Switzerland  or  Denmark,  but  as  the  Socialist 
Laws  ceased  to  have  effect  after  three  years,  and  were  not 
then  renewed,  the  party  resumed  its  congresses  in  Ger- 
many. The  Congress  at  Erfurt  in  1891  resulted  in  the 
issue  of  a  new  programme  rejecting  the  Lassalle  plan  for 
the  establishment  of  workmen's  societies  for  productive 
purposes  and  substituting  for  it  the  transfer  of  all  capital- 
istic private  property  engaged  in  the  means  of  production, 
such  as  lands,  mines,  raw  material,  tools,  machinery,  and 
means  of  transport,  to  the  State.  The  term  used  in  the 
programme  is  "  state,"  not  "  society,"  but  the  State  is  in 
fact  nothing  but  the  society  armed  with  coercive  powers. 

Other  objects  are  universal  suffrage  for  both  sexes  over 
twenty,  electoral  reform,  two-year  parliaments,  direct 
legislation  "  through  the  people,"  some  form  of  parlia- 
mentary government,  autonomy  of  the  people  in  Empire, 
State,  Province,  and  Parish,  conscription,  national  militia 
instead  of  standing  army,  international  arbitration,  aboli- 
tion of  State  religion,  free  and  compulsory  education, 
abolition  of  capital  punishment,  free  burial,  free  medical 
assistance,  free  legal  advice  and  advocacy,  progressive 
succession  duties,  inheritance  tax,  abolition  of  indirect 
taxation  and  customs,  parliamentary  decisions  as  to  peace 
and  war,  and  undenominationalism  in  schools. 

Especially  for  the  working  classes  are  intended  the 
following  :  National  and  international  protective  legisla- 
tion for  workmen  on  the  basis  of  a  normal  eight  hours 
day,  prohibition  of  child  labour  under  fourteen  years, 
prohibition  of  night  work  save  rendered  necessary  by  the 
nature  of  the  work  or  the  welfare  of  society,  superintend- 


92  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

ence  of  labour  and  its  relations  by  a  Ministry  of  Labour, 
thorough  workshop  hygiene,  equality  of  status  between 
the  agricultural  labourer,  servant  class,  and  the  artisan, 
right  of  association,  and  State  insurance,  as  to  which  the 
working  class  should  have  an  authoritative  voice. 

The  programme  contains  nothing  as  to  the  practical 
consequences  of  the  provisions  it  contains,  but  Herr 
Bebel,  in  his  book  on  "Woman  and  Social  Democracy," 
gives  some  examples.  One  is  that  the  working  time  will 
be  alike  for  men  and  women,  another  that  domestic  life 
will  be  limited  to  the  cohabitation  of  man  and  woman, 
for  children  are  to  be  brought  up  by  society,  and  a  third 
that  cooking  and  washing  will  be  the  care  of  central 
public  kitchens  and  washhouses.  Meanwhile,  all  these 
years,  it  may  be  noted,  Herr  Bebel  and  his  millions  of 
followers  have  been  living  exactly  like  everybody  else. 

The  student  of  working-class  conditions  in  Germany  is 
unlikely  to  think  clearly  unless  he  distinguishes  between 
such  terms  as  Social  Democracy,  Socialism,  Trade 
Unionism,  and  Labour  party.  Social  Democracy  is  a 
species  of  Socialism.  All  Social  Democrats  are  Socialists, 
but  not  all  Socialists  Social  Democrats.  The  latter,  as  an 
enrolled  political  party,  paying  annual  subscriptions  and 
looking  forward  to  the  future  state  as  conceived  by  Marx, 
and  now  by  Bebel,  number  something  under  a  million  ; 
the  remaining  three  millions  who  voted  for  Social  Demo- 
cratic candidates  at  the  last  general  election  may  have 
included  men  who  believe  in  Social  Democratic  ideals, 
but  the  vast  majority  of  them,  unless  one  does  grave 
injustice  to  their  common  sense,  voted  for  such  candi- 
dates owing  to  dissatisfaction  with  the  policy  of  the 
Government  and  present  conditions  generally — the  high 
cost  of  living,  the  pressure  of  taxation,  the  severity  of 
class  distinctions,  and  like  grievances,  real  or  imaginary. 
These  people  are  Socialists  in  the  English  or  international 
sense  of  the  word,  not  Social  Democrats  strictly  speaking  ; 


THE   ACCESSION  93 

and  with  these  people  the  Emperor  is  most  angry  because 
he  knows  they  form  the  element  most  capable  of  dan- 
gerous expansion. 

Again,  though  the  vast  majority  of  German  Socialists 
in  the  broader  sense  are  Trade  Unionists,  not  all  Trade 
Unionists  are  Socialists.  Trade  Unionism — the  organiza- 
tion of  labour  against  capital — is  represented  in  Germany 
by  two  main  bodies  ;  the  free  or  Socialist  Unions  con- 
taining about  two  million  working  men,  and  the 
"  Christian  "  or  loyal  "  National  "  Unions,  which  are 
anti-Social  Democrat  and  anti-Socialist.  These  have  a 
membership  of  about  300,000.  The  Hirsch-Duncker 
Unions,  with  100,000  members,  are  Liberal,  but  also 
loyal  and  anti-Socialist.  In  labour  conflicts,  naturally, 
as  distinguished  from  politics,  all  workmen  of  the  par- 
ticular branch  in  conflict  work  together,  whether  they  are 
Socialist  or  not.  It  need  only  be  added  that  there  is  no 
so-called  "  Labour  party "  in  the  German  Parliaments. 
The  Social  Democratic  party  in  the  Reichstag  represents 
labour  interests  generally,  and  promote  them  much  more 
insistently  and  successfully  than  they  do  the  Utopia  of 
their  dreams. 

But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  comprehen- 
sive and  revolutionary  nature  of  Social  Democratic  doc- 
trine. The  only  other  feature  that  requires  mention  in 
connexion  with  the  movement  is  the  desire  on  the  part 
of  a  section  of  the  party  for  a  revision  of  its  programme. 
The  party  of  revision  is  usually  identified  with  the  names 
of  Heinrich  von  Vollmar,  who  first  suggested  it,  and 
Eduard  Bernstein,  who  is  in  favour  of  trying  to  realize 
that  portion  of  the  programme  which  deals  with  the 
social  needs  of  the  existing  generation,  the  demands  of 
the  present  day,  and  would  leave  to  posterity  the  attain- 
ment of  the  final  goal.  The  views  of  the  Revisionists 
differ  also  from  those  of  the  Radicals  in  respect  of  two 
other  main  questions  which  divide  the  party,  that  of 


94  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

voting  budgets  and  that  of  going  to  court.  The  Revi- 
sionists are  willing  to  do  both,  and  the  Radicals  to  do 
neither.  A  decisive  split  in  the  party  is  annually  looked 
for,  but  hitherto,  when  congress-day  came,  the  Revi- 
sionists, for  the  sake  of  peace  and  unity  in  the  party,  have 
refrained  from  pushing  their  views  to  extremes.  One 
might  suppose  that  professors  of  the  tenets  of  Social 
Democracy  would  get  into  trouble  with  the  police,  but 
they  avoid  arrest  and  imprisonment  by  taking  care  to 
avoid  attacking  property  or  the  family,  advocating  a 
republic,  or  introducing  religious  questions  into  their 
discussions. 

In  dealing  with  the  growth  of  Social  Democracy  in 
Germany  the  philosophic  historian  would  doubtless  refer 
to  the  French  Revolution,  or  go  still  farther  back  to  the 
Reformation,  as  the  starting-point  of  every  great  change 
in  the  views  of  civilized  mankind  during  the  last  four  and 
a  half  centuries ;  but  it  is  with  more  recent  times  these 
pages  are  chiefly  concerned  and  consequently  with  causes 
now  operative.  The  main  specific  cause  is  the  change 
from  agriculture  to  industry,  and  with  it  the  growth  of 
what  is  generally  spoken  of  as  "  industrialism."  Indus- 
trialism means  the  assemblage  of  large  masses  of  intelli- 
gent men  forming  a  community  of  their  own,  with  its 
special  conditions  and  the  wants  and  wishes  arising  from 
them.  This  is  the  most  fertile  field  for  Socialism,  for  a 
new  organization  of  society.  In  Germany  Socialistic 
ideas  kept  growing  with  the  increase  of  industrialism, 
and  came  to  a  head  with  the  attempts  by  Hodel  and 
Nobiling  on  the  life  of  the  Emperor  William.  The  anti- 
Socialist  laws,  passed  for  a  definite  period,  followed,  but 
they  were  not  renewed  ;  the  Emperor  and  his  Government 
pressed  on  instead  with  a  great  and  far-reaching  social 
policy,  and  Socialism,  in  the  form  of  Social  Democracy, 
freed  from  restraint,  took  a  new  lease  of  life. 

Another  cause   of  as  general,  but  less   ponderable,  a 


THE    ACCESSION  95 

nature  is  the  remnant  of  the  feudal  spirit  and  feudal 
manners  which  lingers  in  the  attitude  of  the  German 
governing  and  official  classes  towards  the  rest  of  the 
population.  The  most  objectionable  features  of  the 
feudal  system  have  passed  away,  the  cruel  and  exclusive 
rights  and  privileges  which  only  men  in  ignorant  per- 
sonal servitude  to  an  all-powerful  master  could  perma- 
nently endure  ;  but  traces  of  the  system  still  exist  in  the 
official  attitude  towards  the  public  and  in  the  tone  of  the 
official  communications  issued  by  the  administrative  ser- 
vices generally.  Attitude  and  tone  may  be  referred  in 
part  to  the  traditional  character  of  the  Prussian  monarchy, 
which  regards  the  people  as  a  flock  of  sheep,  or  as  a 
"  talent,"  as  the  Emperor  has  called  it,  entrusted  to  its 
care  and  management  by  Heaven  ;  but  it  is  also  due 
in  part  to  the  systematization  of  public  life — and 
largely  of  private  life — which  at  times  makes  the 
foreigner  inclined  to  think  Germany  at  once  the  most 
Socialistic  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  tyrannically 
ruled  country  in  the  world.  Everything  in  Germany 
must  be  done  systematically,  and  the  system  must  be  the 
result  of  development.  But  there  is  no  use  in  having  a 
system  unless  it  is  enforced — otherwise  it  remains,  like 
Social  Democracy,  a  theory.  Compulsion,  therefore,  is 
necessary,  and  the  Government  provides  it  through  its 
official  machinery  and  its  police.  The  systematization 
has  enormous  public  advantages,  but  it  is  difficult  for  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  jealous  of  his  individual  right  to  direct 
his  public  life  through  his  own  representatives  and  his 
private  life  according  to  his  own  judgment,  to  accommo- 
date himself  to  a  system  which  seems  to  him  unduly  to 
interfere  with  both  right  and  judgment. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  manner  in  which,  under  the  name  of 
authority,  compulsion  is  exercised  by  subordinate  official- 
dom and  in  especial  by  the  police,  as  much  as  the 
compulsion  itself,  which  irritates  in  Germany.  Every 


96  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

profession,  business,  trade,  and  occupation,  down  to  that 
of  selling  matches  and  newspapers  in  the  streets,  is 
meticulously  regulated  ;  and  while  there  is  nothing  to 
object  to  in  this,  what  strikes  the  Anglo-Saxon  as  objec- 
tionable is  that  the  regulations  are  enforced  with  the 
manners  and  in  the  tone  of  a  drill-sergeant.  The  official 
in  Germany,  he  finds,  is  not  the  servant  of  the  public. 
There  is  a  story  current  in  England  of  a  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
when  Postmaster-General,  going  into  a  district  post-office 
and  asking  for  a  penny  stamp.  The  clerk  was  dilatory, 
and  the  Duke  remonstrated.  "  Who  are  you,  I  should 
like  to  know  ?  "  asked  the  clerk  impertinently,  "  that  you 
are  laying  down  the  law."  "  I  am  the  public,"  replied 
the  Duke  simply,  at  the  same  time  showing  the  clerk  his 
card.  An  English  Foreign  Secretary  once  told  a  deputa- 
tion that  the  Ministry  was  "  waiting  for  instructions  from 
their  employers — the  people."  In  Germany  it  is  the 
opposite  ;  the  official  is  the  master  and  the  public  his 
dutiful  servant.  In  Germany  the  official  expects  marked 
deference  from  the  public  :  the  post-office  clerk  is  Mr. 
Official,"  the  guardian  of  the  law  "  Mr.  Policeman  "  (with 
your  hat  off).  The  Anglo-Saxon  rather  expects  the  defer- 
ence to  be  on  the  other  side,  and  has  a  sordid  subcon- 
sciousness  that  he  pays  the  official  for  his  services. 
Perhaps  the  Social  Democrat  has  something  of  the  same 
feeling. 

One  of  the  chief  consequences  of  industrialism  in 
Germany  is  that  the  people  of  the  country  are  migrating 
to  the  towns.  To  the  country  bumpkin  the  city  is  an 
Eldorado  and  a  lordly  pleasure-house.  In  truth,  he  is 
much  better  off  in  it  than  in  the  stagnant  life  of  the 
country.  In  the  city  he  sees  comfort  on  every  hand,  with 
possibilities  of  enjoyment  of  every  kind,  and  if  he  does 
not  soon  get  a  share  of  the  good  things  going  he  grows 
discontented  and  turns  Socialist.  In  the  city,  too,  he 
learns  to  think  and  compare,  he  perceives  the  distinction 


THE   ACCESSION  97 

of  classes  and  notices  that  certain  classes  have  open  to 
them  careers  from  which  he  is  excluded.  Then  there 
is  the  apparently  inevitable  antagonism  between  labour 
and  capital,  between  the  employer  and  employed,  which 
drives  the  worker  to  Social  Democracy,  as  offering  the 
prospect  of  his  becoming  his  own  master  and  enjoying 
the  whole  fruits  of  his  labour.  He  may  not  know  Matthew 
Arnold's  "  Sick  King  in  Bokhara,"  but  he  would  endorse 
Arnold's  lines  : — 

"  And  these  all,  for  a  lord 
Eat  not  the  fruit  of  their  own  hands  ; 
Which  is  the  heaviest  of  all  plagues 
To  that  man's  mind,  who  understands." 

But  whatever  its  causes,  Social  Democracy  is  one  of 
the  most  curious  and  anomalous  societies  extant.  In  a 
country  which  worships  order,  it  calls  for  absolute  dis- 
order. A  revolutionary  movement,  it  anxiously  avoids 
revolution.  It  is  a  magnificent  organization  for  no 
apparent  practical,  direct,  or  immediate  purpose.  Pro- 
claiming the  protection  of  the  law  and  enjoying  the 
blessing  of  efficient  government,  it  yet  refuses  to  vote  the 
budget  to  pay  for  them.  It  supports  a  large  parliamentary 
party  without  any  clear  or  consistent  parliamentary  policy 
in  internal  or  external  affairs,  unless  to  be  "agin  the 
Government"  is  a  policy.  And  lastly,  if  some  of  its 
economic  demands  are  justifiable,  and  have  in  several 
respects  been  satisfied  by  modern  legislation,  its  funda- 
mental doctrine,  the  basis  of  the  entire  edifice,  is  a  wild 
hallucination,  sickening  to  common  sense,  and  com- 
pletely out  of  harmony  with  the  progressive  economic 
development  of  all  nations,  including  its  own. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  added  that  the  social  side  of 
the  Social  Democracy  is  perhaps  too  often  unrecognized 
or  ignored  by  the  foreign  observer.  Life  for  the  poorer 
classes  in  Germany  is  apt  to  be  more  monotonous  and 


98  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

dull  than  for  the  poorer  classes  of  any  country  which 
nature  has  blessed  with  more  fertility,  more  sunshine, 
more  diversity  of  hill  and  dale,  and  where  people  are 
more  mutually  sociable  and  accommodating.  Social 
Democracy  offers  something  by  way  of  remedy  to  this  : 
a  field  of  interest  in  which  the  workers  can  organize 
and  make  processions  and  public  demonstrations  and 
can  talk  and  theorize  and  dispute,  and  in  which  the 
woman  can  share  the  interest  with  the  man  ;  or  a  club, 
a  social  club  with  the  largest  membership  in  the  world 
except  freemasonry. 

We  must  return,  however,  to  the  Emperor.  During 
this  period,  in  December,  1890,  he,  like  every  one  else  with 
his  own  ideas  on  education  as  well  as  on  art  and  religion, 
delivered  his  views  on  popular  instruction.  At  this  time 
— he  was  then  thirty — he  called  together  forty-five  of  the 
ablest  educational  experts  of  the  country  and  addressed 
them  on  the  subject  of  high-school  education.  His 
Minister  of  Education,  Dr.  von  Grossler,  had  drawn  up  a 
programme  of  fourteen  points  for  discussion,  and  the 
Emperor  added  to  these  a  few  others  he  wished  to  have 
considered. 

German  high-school  education,  be  it  remarked,  is  a 
different  thing  from  English  public-school  education, 
and  ought  rather  to  be  spoken  of  as  German  information 
than  as  German  education.  We  have  seen  that  the 
spirit  of  the  German  university  differs  largely  from  that 
of  the  English  university,  in  that  it  is  not  concerned  with 
the  formation  of  character  or  the  inculcation  of  manners. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  German  gymnasium,  or 
high  school,  the  institution  from  which  the  German  youth, 
as  a  rule,  goes  to  college.  No  teaching  institution, 
English  or  German,  be  it  further  said  on  our  own 
account,  makes  any  serious  attempt  to  teach  what  will 
prepare  youth  for  intercourse  with  the  extremely  com- 
plicated world  of  to-day,  to  give  him,  to  take  but  one 


THE   ACCESSION  99 

example,  the  faintest  notion  of  contract,  which,  if  he 
possessed  it,  would  save  him  from  many  a  foolish  under- 
taking and  protect  him  from  many  a  business  betrayal. 
Far  from  it.  All  the  disagreeable,  and  many  of  the 
painful  incidents  of  his  subsequent  life,  all  equally 
avoidable  if  knowledge  regarding  them  had  been  instilled 
into  him  in  his  early  years,  he  must  buy  with  money 
and  suffering  and  disgust  in  after-years. 

But  the  Emperor  is  waiting  to  be  heard.  His  entire 
speech  need  not  be  quoted,  but  only  its  chief  conten- 
tions. In  introducing  his  remarks  he  claimed  to  speak 
with  knowledge  as  having  himself  sat  on  a  public-school 
bench  at  Cassel. 

The  Social  Democracy  being  to  the  Emperor  what 
King  Charles's  head  was  to  Mr.  Dick,  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  almost  his  first  statement  being  to  the  effect  that 
if  boys  had  been  properly  taught  up  to  then,  there  would 
be  no  Social  Democracy.  Up  to  1870,  he  said,  the 
great  subject  of  instruction  for  youth  was  the  necessity 
for  German  unity.  Unity  had  been  achieved,  the  Empire 
was  now  founded,  and  there  the  matter  rested.  "  Now," 
said  the  Emperor,  "  we  must  recognize  that  the  school 
is  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  how  the  Empire  is  to 
be  maintained.  I  see  nothing  of  such  teaching,  and  I 
ought  to  know,  for  I  am  at  the  head  of  the  Empire, 
and  all  such  questions  come  under  my  observation. 

"  What,"  he  continues,  "is  lacking  in  the  education  of  our  youth  ? 
The  chief  fault  is  that  since  1870  the  philologists  have  sat  in  the 
high  schools  as  beati  possidentes  and  laid  chief  stress  upon  the  know- 
ledge to  be  acquired  and  not  on  the  formation  of  character  and 
the  demands  of  the  present  time.  Emphasis  has  been  put  on  the 
ability  to  know,  not  on  the  ability  to  do — the  pupil  is  expected 
to  know,  that  is  the  main  thing,  and  whether  what  he  knows  is 
suitable  for  the  conduct  of  life  or  not  is  considered  a  secondary 
matter.  I  am  told  the  school  has  only  to  do  with  the  gymnastics  of 
the  mind,  and  that  a  young  man,  well  trained  in  these  gymnastics,  is 
equipped  for  the  needs  of  life.  This  is  all  wrong  and  can't  go  on." 


ioo          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Then  the  Empire-builder  speaks — what  is  wanted 
above  all  is  a  national  basis. 

"  We  must  make  German  the  foundation  for  the  gymnasium  :  we 
must  produce  patriotic  young  Germans,  not  young  Greeks  and 
Romans.  We  must  depart  from  the  centuries-old  basis,  from  the 
old  monastic  education  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  Latin  was  the 
main  thing  and  a  tincture  of  Greek  besides.  That  is  no  longer 
the  standard.  German  must  be  the  standard.  The  German  exercise 
must  be  the  pivot  on  which  all  things  turn.  When  in  the  exit 
examination  (Abiturientenexameii)  a  student  hands  in  a  German 
essay,  one  can  judge  from  it  what  are  the  mental  acquirements  of 
the  young  man  and  decide  whether  he  is  fit  for  anything  or  not. 
Of  course  people  will  object — the  Latin  exercise  is  very  impor- 
tant, very  good  for  instructing  students  in  other  languages,  and 
so  on.  Yes,  gentlemen,  I  have  been  through  the  mill.  How  do  we 
get  this  Latin  exercise  ?  I  have  often  seen  a  young  man  get,  say 
4^  marks,  for  his  German  exercise — 'satisfactory,'  it  was  con- 
sidered— and  2  for  his  Latin  exercise.  The  youngster  deserved 
punishment  instead  of  praise,  because  it  is  clear  he  did  not  write 
his  Latin  exercise  in  a  proper  way  ;  and  of  all  the  Latin  exercises 
we  wrote  there  was  not  one  in  a  dozen  which  was  done  without 
cribbing.  These  exercises  were  marked  '  good,'  but  when  we  wrote 
an  essay  on  '  Minna  von  Barnhelm '  (one  of  Lessing's  dramas)  we  got 
hardly  '  satisfactory.'  So  I  say,  away  with  the  Latin  exercise,  it  only 
harms  us,  and  robs  us  of  time  we  might  give  to  German." 

The  Emperor  goes  on  to  recommend  the  study  of  the 
nation's  history,  geography,  and  literature  ("  Der  Sage," 
poetry,  he  calls  it). 

"  Let  us  begin  at  home,"  he  says  ;  "  when  we  have  learned  enough 
at  home,  we  can  go  to  the  museums.  But  above  all  we  must  know 
our  German  history.  In  my  time  the  Grand  Elector  was  a  very 
foggy  personage,  the  Seven  Years'  War  was  quite  outside  considera- 
tion, and  history  ended  with  the  close  of  the  last  century,  the  French 
Revolution.  The  War  of  Liberation,  the  most  important  for  the 
young  citizen,  was  not  taught  thoroughly,  and  I  only  learned  to 
know  it,  thank  God,  through  the  very  interesting  lectures  of 
Dr.  Hinzpeter.  This,  however,  is  the  punctum  saliens.  Why  are 
our  young  men  misled  ?  Why  do  we  find  so  many  unclear,  con- 
fused world-improvers  ?  Why  is  our  government  so  cavilled  at  and 
criticized,  and  so  often  told  to  look  at  foreign  nations  ?  Because 


THE    ACCESSION  101 

the  young  men  do  not  know  how  our  conditions  have  developed, 
and  that  the  roots  of  the  development  h'e  in  the  period  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Consequently,  I  am  convinced  that  if  they  understood 
the  transition  period  from  the  Revolution  to  the  nineteenth  century 
in  its  fundamental  features,  they  would  have  a  far  better  under- 
standing of  the  questions  of  to-day  than  they  now  have.  At  the 
universities  they  can  supplement  their  school  knowledge." 

The  Emperor  then  turned  to  other  points.  It  was 
"  absolutely  necessary "  to  reduce  the  hours  of  work. 
When  he  was  at  school,  he  said,  all  German  parents  were 
crying  out  against  the  evil,  and  the  Government  set  on 
foot  an  inquiry.  He  and  his  brother  (Henry)  had  every 
morning  to  hand  a  memorandum  to  the  head  master 
showing  how  many  hours  it  had  taken  them  to  prepare 
the  lessons  for  the  day.  In  the  Emperor's  case  it  took, 
"  honestly,"  from  5^  to  7  hours'  home  study.  To  this 
was  to  be  added  6  hours  in  school  and  2  hours  for 
eating  meals — "  How  much  of  the  day,"  the  Emperor 
asks,  "was  left?  If  I,"  he  said,  "hadn't  been  able  to 
ride  to  and  from  school  I  wouldn't  have  known  what 
the  world  even  looked  like."  The  result  of  this,  he 
continued,  was  an  "  over-production  of  educated  people, 
more  than  the  nation  wanted  and  more  than  was  tolerable 
for  the  sufferers  themselves.  Hence  the  class  Bismarck 
called  the  abiturienten-proletariat,  all  the  so-called 
hunger  candidates,  especially  the  Mr.  Journalists,  who 
are  often  broken-down  scholars  and  a  danger  to  us. 
This  surplus,  far  too  large  as  it  is,  is  like  an  irrigation 
field  that  cannot  soak  up  any  more  water,  and  it  must 
be  got  rid  of." 

Another  matter  touched  on  by  the  Emperor  was  a 
reduction  in  the  amount  to  be  learned,  so  that  more  time 
might  be  had  for  the  formation  of  character.  This  cannot 
be  done  now,  he  remarks,  in  a  class  containing  thirty 
youngsters,  who  have  such  a  huge  amount  of  subjects  to 
master.  The  teacher,  too,  the  Emperor  said,  must  learn 


102          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

that  his  work  is  not  over  when  he  has  delivered  his  lec- 
ture. "  It  isn't  a  matter  of  knowledge,"  he  concludes, 
"  but  a  matter  of  educating  the  young  people  for  the 
practical  affairs  of  life." 

The  Emperor  lastly  dealt  with  the  subject  of  short- 
sightedness. "  I  am  looking  for  soldiers,"  he  said.  "  We 
need  a  strong  and  healthy  generation,  which  will  also 
serve  the  Fatherland  as  intellectual  leaders  and  officials. 
This  mass  of  shortsightedness  is  no  use,  since  a  man  who 
can't  use  his  eyes — how  can  he  do  anything  later  ? " 
and  he  went  on  to  mention  the  extraordinary  facts  that  in 
some  of  the  primary  classes  of  German  schools  as  many 
as  74  per  cent,  were  shortsighted,  and  that  in  his  class  at 
Cassel,  of  the  twenty-one  pupils,  eighteen  wore  spectacles, 
while  two  of  them  could  not  see  the  desk  before  them 
without  their  glasses. 

The  Englishman  in  Germany  often  attributes  German 
shortsightedness  to  the  Gothic  character  of  German 
print.  It  is  more  probable  that  the  long  hours  of  study 
spent  poring  over  books  without  fresh-air  exercise, 
judiciously  interposed,  is  responsible  for  it. 

It  has  been  said  that  every  one,  like  the  Emperor,  has 
his  own  theory  of  education,  but  there  is  one  passage  in 
the  Emperor's  speech  with  which  almost  all  men  will 
agree — that,  namely,  in  which  he  urges  that  knowledge 
is  not  the  only — perhaps  not  the  chief — thing,  but  that 
young  people  must  be  educated  for  the  practical  affairs 
of  life.  Unfortunately,  as  to  how  we  are  successfully  to 
do  this,  the  Emperor  is  silent ;  and  it  may  be  that  there 
is  no  certain  or  exact  way.  One  could,  of  course — but 
we  are  concerned  with  the  Emperor. 

The  difference  of  opinion  between  the  Emperor  and 
Bismarck  regarding  the  Emperor's  visit  to  Russia  seems 
to  have  left  no  permanent  ill-will  in  the  Emperor's 
mind,  for  on  returning  in  October,  1889,  from  visits  to 
Athens,  where  he  attended  the  wedding  of  his  sister 


THE    ACCESSION  103 

Sophie  with  the  Heir-Apparent  of  Greece,  Prince  Con- 
stantine  (now  King  Constantine),  and  Constantinople, 
where  he  was  allowed  to  inspect  the  Sultan's  seraglio, 
he  sent  a  letter  to  the  Chancellor  praying  God  to 
grant  that  the  latter's  "faithful  and  experienced  counsel 
might  for  many  years  assist  him  in  his  difficult  and 
responsible  office."  In  January,  1890,  however,  the 
question  of  renewing  the  Socialist  Laws,  which  would 
expire  shortly,  came  up  for  settlement.  A  council  of 
Ministers,  under  the  Emperor's  presidency,  was  called 
to  decide  it.  When  the  council  met,  Bismarck  was 
greatly  surprised  by  a  proposal  of  the  Emperor  to  issue 
edicts  developing  the  principles  laid  down  by  his  grand- 
father for  working-class  reform  instead  of  renewing  the 
Socialist  Laws.  The  Reichstag  took  the  Emperor's  view 
and  voted  against  the  renewal  of  the  Laws.  It  only  now 
remained  to  give  effect  to  the  Emperor's  edicts.  They 
were  considered  at  a  further  council  of  Ministers,  at 
which  the  Emperor  exhorted  them  to  "  leave  the  Social 
Democracy  to  me,  I  can  manage  them  alone."  The 
Ministers  agreed,  and  Bismarck  was  in  a  minority  of  one. 
This,  however,  was  only  the  beginning  of  the  end.  Bis- 
marck decided  to  continue  in  office  until  he  had  carried 
through  Parliament  a  new  military  Bill,  which  was  to 
come  before  it  in  May  or  June.  Meanwhile  fresh  matters 
of  controversy  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor 
arose  regarding  the  grant  of  imperial  audiences  to 
Ministers  other  than  the  Chancellor.  Bismarck  insisted 
that  the  Chancellor  alone  had  the  right  to  be  received  by 
the  Emperor  for  the  discussion  of  State  affairs. 

The  quarrel  was  accentuated  by  a  lively  scene  which 
occurred  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor  about 
this  period  in  connexion  with  a  visit  the  leader  of  the 
Catholic  Centre  party  had  paid  the  Chancellor,  and  on 
March  iyth  the  Emperor  sent  his  chief  Adjutant,  General 
von  Hahnke,  to  say  he  awaited  the  Chancellor's  resigna- 


104          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

tion.  Bismarck  replied  that  to  resign  at  this  juncture 
would  be  an  act  of  desertion  ;  the  Emperor  could  dismiss 
him.  At  the  same  time  the  Chancellor  summoned  a 
meeting  of  Ministers  for  the  afternoon,  but  while  they 
were  discussing  the  situation  a  message  was  brought  from 
the  Emperor  telling  them  he  did  not  require  their  advice 
in  such  a  matter  and  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  about 
the  Chancellor.  The  messenger  on  the  same  occasion 
expressed  to  Bismarck  the  Emperor's  surprise  at  not 
having  received  a  formal  resignation.  Bismarck's  reply 
was  that  it  would  require  some  days  to  prepare  such  a 
document,  as  it  was  the  last  official  statement  of  a 
"  Minister  who  had  played  a  meritorious  part  in  the  his- 
tory of  Prussia  and  Germany,  and  history  should  know 
why  he  had  been  dismissed."  Three  days  later,  on 
March  2oth,  an  hour  or  two  after  the  formal  resignation 
reached  the  palace,  the  Emperor's  letter  granting  the 
Chancellor's  request  for  his  release,  naming  him  Duke 
of  Lauenburg  and  announcing  the  appointment  of 
General  von  Caprivi  as  his  successor,  was  put  into  the 
old  Chancellor's  hands. 


THE   COURT   OF  THE   EMPEROR 

WHILE  the  ex-Chancellor  is  bitterly  meditating 
on  the  unreliability  and  ingratitude  of  princes, 
yet  having  in  his  heart,  as  the  records  clearly 
show,  the  loyal  sentiments  of  a  Cardinal  Wolsey  towards 
his  royal  master,  even  though  that  master  had  cast  him 
off,  we  may  be  allowed  to  pause  awhile  in  order  to  give 
some  account  of  the  Court  of  which  the  Emperor  now 
became  the  centre  and  pivot. 

Human  imagination,  in  its  worship  of  force  as  the 
source  of  ability  to  achieve  the  ends  of  ambition  and 
desire,  very  early  conceived  the  courts  of  kings  as  fairy- 
lands of  power,  wealth,  luxury,  and  magnificence — in  a 
word,  of  happiness.  The  same  imagination  represents 
the  Almighty,  whose  true  nature  no  one  knows,  as  a 
monarch  in  the  bright  court  of  heaven,  and  his  great 
antagonist,  Satan,  who  stands  for  the  king  of  evil,  is 
enthroned  by  it  amid  the  shades  of  hell.  The  fiction 
that  courts  are  a  species  of  earthly  paradise  is  still  kept 
up  for  the  entertainment  of  children  ;  while  the  adult, 
whom  the  annals  of  all  countries  has  made  familiar  with 
a  long  record  of  monarchs,  bad  as  well  as  good,  is  dis- 
posed to  regard  them  as  beneficial  or  otherwise  to  a 
country  according  to  the  character  and  conduct  of  the 
occupant  of  the  throne,  and  to  believe  that  they  are  at 
least  as  liable  to  produce  examples  of  vice  and  hypocrisy 
as  of  virtue  and  honesty. 

105 


io6  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

The  Court  of  the  German  Emperor  in  this  connexion 
need  not  fear  comparison  with  any  court  described  in 
history.  True,  courts  all  over  the  world  have  improved 
wonderfully  of  recent  years.  Their  monarchs  are  more 
enlightened,  they  are  frequented  by  a  very  different  type 
of  man  and  woman  from  the  courts  of  former  times,  their 
morale  and  working  are  more  closely  scrutinized  and 
more  generally  subjected  to  criticism,  and  they  are  occu- 
pied with  a  more  public  and  less  selfish  order  of  con- 
siderations. The  Court  of  the  Emperor  is,  so  far  as  can 
be  known  to  a  lynx-eyed  and  not  always  charitably 
thinking  public,  singularly  free  from  the  vices  and  failings 
the  atmosphere  of  former  courts  was  wont  to  foster. 
There  is  at  all  times,  no  doubt,  the  competition  of  poli- 
ticians for  influence  and  power  acting  and  reacting  on 
the  Court  and  its  frequenters,  but  of  scandal  at  the  Court 
of  Berlin  there  has  been  none  that  could  be  fairly  said  to 
involve  the  Emperor  or  his  family.  Dame  Gossip,  of 
course,  busied  herself  with  the  Emperor  in  his  youth, 
but  whatever  truth  she  then  uttered — and  it  is  probably 
extremely  little — on  this  head,  there  is  no  question  that 
from  the  day  he  mounted  the  throne  his  Court  and  that 
of  the  Empress  has  been  a  model  for  all  institutions  of 
the  kind. 

The  life  of  courts,  the  personages  who  play  leading 
parts  in  them,  their  wealth  and  luxury,  and  the  currents 
of  social,  amorous,  and  political  intrigue  which  are  sup- 
posed to  course  through  them  have  in  all  countries  and 
in  all  ages  strongly  appealed  to  writers,  fanciful  and 
serious.  Perhaps  one-third  of  the  prose  and  poetic 
literature  of  every  country  deals,  directly  or  indirectly, 
with  the  subject,  and  determines  in  no  small  degree  the 
character  of  its  rising  generations.  The  great  architects 
of  romance,  depicting  for  us  life  in  high  places,  and  often 
nobly  idealizing  it,  or  working  the  facts  of  history  into 
the  web  of  their  imaginings  and  thus  pleasantly  com- 


THE  COURT  OF  THE  EMPEROR  107 

bining  fact  with  fiction,  aim  at  elevating,  not  at  debasing, 
the  mind  of  the  reader.  A  second  valuable  source  of 
information  on  the  topic  are  the  memoirs  of  those  who 
have  set  down  their  observations  and  recorded  experi- 
ences made  in  the  courts  to  which  they  had  access. 
Among  this  class,  however,  are  to  be  found  unscrupulous 
as  well  as  conscientious  authors,  the  former  obviously 
cherishing  some  personal  grievance  or  as  obviously  actu- 
ated by  malice,  while  the  latter  are  usually  moved  by  an 
honest  desire  to  tell  the  world  things  that  are  important 
for  it  to  know,  and  at  the  same  time,  it  is  not  ill-natured 
to  suspect,  enhance  their  own  reputation  with  their  con- 
temporaries or  with  posterity.  The  multitudinous  tribe 
of  anecdote  inventors  and  retailers  must  also  be  taken 
into  account.  In  our  own  day  there  is  still  another 
source  of  information,  which,  agreeably  or  odiously 
according  to  the  temperament  of  the  reader,  keeps  us  in 
touch  with  courts  and  what  goes  on  there — the  periodical 
presb  ;  while  afar  off  in  the  future  one  can  imagine  the 
historian  bent  over  his  desk,  surrounded  by  books  and 
knee-deep  in  newspapers,  selecting  and  weighing  events, 
studying  characters,  developing  personalities,  and  passing 
what  he  hopes  may  be  a  final  judgment  on  the  court  and 
period  he  is  considering. 

For  a  study  of  the  Emperor's  life,  as  it  passes  in  his 
Court,  a  large  number  of  works  are  available,  but  not 
many  that  can  be  described  as  authoritative  or  reliable. 
Among  the  latter,  however,  may  be  placed  Moritz  Busch's 
"  Bismarck  :  Some  Secret  Pages  of  His  History,"  three 
volumes  that  make  Busch  almost  as  interesting  to  the 
reader  as  his  subject ;  Bismarck's  own  "  Gedanke  und 
Erinnerungen,"  which  is  chiefly  of  a  political  nature ; 
and  the  "  Memorabilia  of  Prince  Chlodwig  Hohenlohe- 
Schillingsfurst,"  who  was  for  several  years  Statthalter 
of  Alsace-Lorraine  and  subsequently  became  Imperial 
Chancellor  in  succession  to  General  von  Caprivi.  These 


io8  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

works,  with  the  collections  of  the  Emperor's  speeches, 
and  the  speeches  and  interviews  of  Chancellor  Prince 
von  Bulow,  may  be  ranked  in  the  category  of  serious 
and  authentic  contributions  to  the  Court  history  of  the 
period  they  cover.  Then  there  are  several  German 
descriptions  of  the  Court,  reliable  enough  in  their  way, 
which  is  a  dull  one,  to  those  who  are  not  impassioned 
monarchists  or  hide-bound  bureaucrats.  In  the  category 
of  works  by  unscrupulous  writers  that  entitled  "  The 
Private  Lives  of  William  II  and  His  Consort,"  by  a  lady- 
in-waiting  to  the  Empress  from  1888  to  1898,  easily 
takes  first  place.  Certainly  it  gives  a  lively  and  often 
entertaining  insight  into  the  domestic  life  of  the  palace, 
but  it  is  so  clearly  informed  by  spite  that  it  is  impossible 
to  distinguish  what  is  true  in  it  from  what  is  false  or 
misrepresented.  Finally,  for  the  closer  study  of  indi- 
vidual events  and  the  impressions  they  made  at  the  time 
of  their  happening,  the  daily  press  can  be  consulted. 
For  the  Bismarck  period  the  biography  of  Hans  Blum 
is  of  exceptional  value. 

What  may  be  termed  the  anecdotic  literature  of  the 
Court  is  particularly  rich  and  trivial,  and  this  is  only  to 
be  expected  in  a  country  where  the  monarchy  and  its 
representative  are  so  forcibly  and  constantly  brought 
home  to  the  people's  consciousness.  Yet  it  has  its  uses, 
and  is  referred  to,  though  sparingly,  in  the  present  work. 
"  The  Emperor  as  Father  of  a  Family,"  "  The  Emperor 
and  His  Daughter's  Uniform,"  "The  Amiable  Grand- 
father," "  The  Emperor  as  Husband,"  "  The  Emperor  as 
Card  Player,"  "  How  the  Emperor's  Family  is  Photo- 
graphed," "  What  does  the  Emperor's  Kitchen  Look 
Like,"  "  Adieu,  Auguste  "  ("  Auguste "  is  the  Empress), 
"The  English  Lord  and  the  Emperor's  Cigarettes," 
"  When  My  Wife  Makes  You  a  Sandwich,"  "  What  the 
Emperor  Reads,"  " The  Emperor's  Handwriting,"  "Can 
the  Emperor  Vote  ? "  (the  answer  is,  opinions  differ), 


THE  COURT  OF  THE  EMPEROR  109 

"  Washing  Day  at  the  Emperor's,"  "  The  Emperor  and 
the  Empress  at  Tennis,"  "  Emperor  and  Auto,"  are  the 
sort  of  matters  dealt  with.  Literature  of  this  kind  is 
beyond  question  intensely  interesting  to  vast  numbers 
of  people,  but  helps  very  little  towards  understanding  a 
singularly  complex  human  being  placed  in  a  high  and 
extraordinarily  responsible  position. 

Strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  Imperial  Court  in  Ger- 
many, since  the  King  of  Prussia,  in  accordance  with  the 
Imperial  Constitution,  always  succeeds  to  the  imperial 
throne,  and  therefore  officially  the  Court  is  that  of  the 
King  of  Prussia  only.  The  distinction  is  emphasized  by 
the  fact  that  the  Court  is  independent  of  the  Empire  as 
regards  its  administration  and  finance.  It  is  a  state  within 
a  state,  an  imperium  in  imperio.  In  all  that  pertains  to  it 
the  Emperor  is  absolute  ruler  and  his  executive  is  a 
special  Ministry.  At  the  same  time  it  is  almost  needless 
to  add  that  the  Court  of  Berlin  is  practically  that  of  the 
Empire.  It  is  this  character,  apart  from  Prussia's  size 
and  importance,  that  distinguishes  it  from  other  courts 
in  Germany  and  reduces  them  to  comparative  insigni- 
ficance in  foreign,  though  by  no  means  in  German, 
consideration. 

The  Court  of  the  Empire  and  Prussia — and  the  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  the  various  other  courts  in  Germany 
— engages  popular  interest  and  attention  to  a  much  larger 
extent  than  is  the  case  in  England.  The  fact  is  almost 
wholly  due  to  the  nature  of  the  monarchy  and  of  its 
relations  to  the  people.  In  England  a  great  portion  of 
the  popular  attention  is  concentrated  on  Parliament  and 
the  fortunes  of  its  two  great  political  parties.  The 
attention  given  to  the  Court  and  its  doings  is  not  of 
the  same  general  and  permanent  character,  but  is  inter- 
mittent according  to  the  occasion.  The  Englishman 
feels  deep  and  abiding  popular  interest  at  all  times  in 
Parliament,  whether  in  session  or  not,  because  it  repre- 


no 

sents  the  people  and  is,  in  fact,  and  for  hundreds  of  years 
has  been,  the  Government. 

The  reverse  may  fairly  be  said  to  be  the  case  in  Ger- 
many. In  Germany  popular  attention  has  been  from 
early  times  concentrated  on  the  monarch,  his  personality, 
sayings  and  doings,  since  in  his  hands  lay  government 
power  and  patronage.  Monarchy  of  a  more  or  less 
absolute  character  was  accepted  by  the  people,  not  only 
in  Germany  but  all  over  the  Continent,  as  the  normal 
and  desirable,  perhaps  the  inevitable,  state  of  things  ;  and 
it  is  only  since  the  French  Revolution  that  parliaments 
after  the  English  pattern,  that  is  by  two  chambers  elected 
by  popular  vote,  yet  in  many  important  respects  widely 
differing  from  it,  were  demanded  by  the  people  or  finally 
established.  Up  to  comparatively  recent  times  the 
monarch  in  Prussia  was  an  absolute  ruler.  Frederick 
William  IV,  after  the  events  of  1848,  was  compelled  to 
grant  Prussia  a  Constitution  which  explicitly  defined  the 
respective  rights  of  the  Crown  and  the  people  in  the 
sphere  of  politics  ;  and  the  Imperial  Constitution,  drawn 
up  on  the  formation  of  the  modern  Empire,  did  the  same 
thing  as  regards  the  Emperor  and  the  people  of  the 
Empire  ;  but  neither  Constitution  altered  the  nature  of  the 
monarchy  in  the  direction  of  giving  governing  power  to 
the  people.  Both  secured  the  people  legislative,  but  not 
governing  power.  Government  in  the  Empire  and  Prussia 
remains,  as  of  old,  an  appanage,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Court, 
and  the  fact  of  course  tends  to  concentrate  attention  on 
the  Court. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Court  is  a  state  within  a  state, 
an  imperium  in  imperio.  In  this  state,  within  Prussia  or 
within  the  Empire,  it  is  the  same  thing  for  our  purpose, 
there  are  two  main  departments,  that  of  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain (Oberstkammeramt)  and  that  of  the  Master  of  the 
Household  (Ministerium  des  Koniglichen  Hauses).  The 
first  deals  with  all  questions  of  court  etiquette,  court 


THE  COURT  OF  THE  EMPEROR  in 

ceremonial,  court  mourning,  precedence,  superintendence 
of  the  courts  of  the  Emperor's  sons  and  near  relatives, 
and  of  all  Prussian  court  offices.  The  second  deals  with 
the  personal  affairs  of  the  Emperor  and  his  sons,  the 
domestic  administration  of  the  palace,  the  management 
of  the  Crown  estates  and  castles,  and  is  the  tribunal  that 
decides  all  Hohenzollern  differences  and  disputes  that 
are  not  subject  to  the  ordinary  legal  tribunals.  Con- 
nected with  this  Ministry  are  the  Herald's  office  and  the 
Court  Archives  office.  The  chief  Court  officials  include, 
beside  the  Lord  Chamberlain  and  the  Master  of  the 
Household,  a  Chief  Court  Marshal.  The  Master  of  the 
Household  is  also  Chief  Master  of  Ceremonies,  with  a 
Deputy  Master  of  Ceremonies  who  is  also  Introducer  of 
Ambassadors,  two  Court  Marshals,  a  Captain  of  the 
Palace  Guards,  a  Court  Chaplain,  Court  Physician,  an 
Intendant  in  charge  of  the  royal  theatres,  a  Master  of 
the  Horse  who  has  charge  of  the  royal  stables,  a  House 
Marshal,  and  a  Master  of  the  Kitchen.  All  these  officials 
are  princes  (Furst)  or  counts  (Graf),  with  the  title  High- 
ness (Durchlaucht)  or  Excellency. 

Court  officials  also  include  the  various  nobles  in  charge 
of  the  royal  palaces,  castles,  and  hunting  lodges  at 
Potsdam,  Charlottenburg,  Breslau,  Stettin,  Marienburg, 
Posen,  Letzlingen,  Hohkonigsberg,  Homberg  von  der 
Hohe,  Springe,  Hubertusstock,  Rominten,  Korfu  (the 
"  Achilleion "),  Wiesbaden,  Koenigsberg,  etc.,  to  the 
number  of  thirty  or  more.  The  Empress  has  her  own 
Court  officials,  including  a  Mistress  of  the  Robes  and 
Ladies  of  the  Bedchamber,  also  with  the  title  of  Excel- 
lency, the  Ladies  being  chosen  from  the  most  aristocratic 
families  of  Germany.  The  Empress  has  her  own  Master 
of  the  Household,  physician,  treasurer,  and  so  on.  Simi- 
larly with  the  households  of  the  Crown  Prince,  other 
royal  princes  and  the  Emperor's  near  relatives. 

Every  order  the  Emperor  gives  that  is  not  of  a  purely 


ii2          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

domestic  kind  passes  through  one  of  his  three  cabinets — 
the  Civil  Cabinet,  the  Military  Cabinet,  or  the  Marine 
Cabinet.  The  cost  of  the  first,  with  its  chief,  who 
receives  ^1,000  a  year,  and  half  a  dozen  subordinate 
officials  on  salaries  of  £200  to  .£350,  is  budgeted  at 
about  .£10,000  a  year.  The  Military  Cabinet  is  a  much 
larger  establishment,  having  several  departments  and  a 
staff  of  half  a  hundred  councillors  and  clerks.  The 
Naval  Cabinet,  on  the  other  hand,  is  composed  of  only 
three  upper  officials  and  five  clerks.  The  Emperor's 
"civil  list"  is  returned  in  the  Budget  as  .£860,000 
roughly.  His  entire  annual  revenue  does  not  exceed 
;£  1,000,000.  Out  of  this  he  has  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  his  married  sons'  households  and  make  large  contri- 
butions to  public  charities.  He  was  left,  however,  a 
very  considerable  sum  of  money  by  the  Emperor 
William.  The  Crown  Prince,  as  such,  receives  a  grant 
of  ^20,000  a  year,  chiefly  derived  from  the  royal  domain 
of  Oels  in  Silesia.  Like  all  fathers  of  large  families,  the 
Emperor  has  been  more  than  once  heard  to  complain 
that  he  finds  it  difficult  to  make  both  ends  meet. 

The  Emperor's  staff  of  adjutants  are  exceptionally 
useful  and  important  people.  At  their  head  is  the  chief 
of  the  Emperor's  Military  Cabinet.  Not  less  important 
are  the  members  of  the  Emperor's  Marine  Cabinet,  con- 
sisting of  admirals,  vice-admirals,  and  wing-admirals. 
The  personal  adjutants  divide  the  day  and  night  service 
between  them,  so  that  there  may  always  be  three  adju- 
tants at  the  Emperor's  immediate  disposal.  The  adjutant 
announces  Ministers  or  other  visitors  to  the  Emperor, 
telegraphs  to  say  that  His  Majesty  has  an  hour  or  an  hour 
and  a  half  at  his  disposal  at  such-and-such  a  time,  or 
intimates  that  an  audience  of  half  an  hour  can  be  given 
in  the  train  between  two  given  points.  They  act  as  living 
memorandum  books,  knock  at  the  Emperor's  door  to 
announce  that  it  is  time  for  him  to  go  to  this  or  that 


THE    COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     113 

appointment,  remind  him  that  a  congratulatory  telegram 
on  some  one's  seventieth  birthday  or  other  jubilee  has  to 
be  sent,  or  perhaps  whispers  that  Her  Majesty  the  Empress 
wishes  to  see  him.  All  the  Emperor's  correspondence 
passes  through  their  hands.  They  accompany  the 
Emperor  on  his  journeys  and  voyages,  and  when  thus 
employed  are  usually  invited  to  his  table.  The  Emperor 
reads  of  some  new  book  and  tells  an  adjutant  to  order  it, 
and  the  latter  does  so  by  communicating  with  the  Civil 
Cabinet. 

Court  society  in  Berlin  includes  the  German  "higher" 
and  "lower"  nobility,  with  the  exception  of  the  so-called 
Fronde,  who  proudly  absent  themselves  from  it ;  the 
Ministers  ;  the  diplomatic  corps  ;  Court  officials;  and  such 
members  of  the  burghertum,  or  middle  class,  as  hold 
offices  which  entitle  them  to  attend  court.  The  wives, 
however,  of  those  in  the  last  category  are  not  "court- 
capable"  on  this  account,  nor  is  the  middle  class 
generally,  nor  even  members  of  the  Imperial  or  Prussian 
Parliaments  as  such.  Members  of  Parliament  are  invited 
to  the  Court's  seasonal  festivities,  but  as  a  rule  only 
members  of  the  Conservative  parties  or  other  supporters 
of  the  Government.  The  nobility,  as  in  England,  is 
hereditary  or  only  nominated  for  life,  and  the  hereditary 
nobility  is  divided  into  an  upper  and  lower  class.  To 
the  former  belongs  members  of  houses  that  were  ruling 
when  the  modern  Empire  was  established,  and,  while 
excluding  the  Emperor,  who  stands  above  them,  includes 
sovereign  houses  and  mediatized  houses.  Some  of  the 
ancient  privileges  of  the  nobility,  such  as  exemption  from 
taxation,  and  the  right  to  certain  high  offices,  have  been 
abolished,  but  in  practice  the  nobility  still  occupy  the 
most  important  charges  in  the  administration  and  in  the 
army.  The  privileges  of  the  mediatized  princes  consist 
of  exemption  from  conscription,  the  enjoyment  of  the 
principle  called  "  equality  of  birth,"  which  prevents  the 


ii4          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

burgher  wife  of  a  noble  acquiring  her  husband's  rank, 
and  the  right  to  have  their  own  "house  law"  for  the 
regulation  of  family  disputes  and  family  affairs  generally. 
No  increase  to  the  high  nobility  of  Germany  can  accrue 
as  no  addition  will  ever  be  made  to  the  once  sovereign 
and  mediatized  families.  With  the  exception  of  these 
houses  the  rest  of  the  German  nobility,  hereditary  and 
non-hereditary,  is  accounted  as  belonging  to  the  lower 
nobility.  That  part  of  the  German  aristocracy  who 
refuse  to  go  to  court,  and  are  accordingly  called  by  the 
name  Fronde,  first  given  to  the  opponents  of  Cardinal 
Mazarin,  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV,  consist  chiefly  of  a 
few  old  families  of  Prussian  Poland,  Hannover  (the 
Guelphs),  Brunswick,  Nassau,  Hessen,  and  other  annexed 
German  territories,  and  of  some  great  Catholic  houses  in 
Bavaria  and  the  Rhineland.  Their  dislike  is  directed  not 
so  much  against  the  Empire  as  against  Prussia.  The 
Kulturkampf  had  the  effect  of  setting  a  small  number 
of  ancient  Prussian  ultramontane  families  against  the 
Government. 

Not  much  that  is  complimentary  can  be  said  of  the 
German  aristocracy  as  a  whole.  "  Serenissimus  "  is  to- 
day as  frequently  the  subject  of  bitter,  if  often  humorous, 
caricature  in  the  comic  press  as  ever  he  was.  A  few  of  the 
class,  like  Prince  Fiirstenberg,  Prince  Hohenlohe,  Count 
Henkel-Donnersmarck  and  some  others  engage  success- 
fully in  commerce  ;  many  are  practical  farmers  and  have 
done  a  good  deal  for  agriculture  ;  several  are  deputies  to 
Parliament  ;  but  on  the  whole  the  foreigner  gets  the 
impression  that  the  class  as  such  contributes  but  a  small 
percentage  of  what  it  might  and  should  in  the  way  of 
brains,  industry,  or  example  to  the  welfare  and  the 
progress  of  the  Empire. 

It  is  difficult  to  communicate  an  impression  of  the 
Court,  whether  at  the  Schloss  in  Berlin  or  the  New 
Palace  in  Potsdam,  and  at  the  same  time  avoid  the  dry 


THE    COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     115 

and  dusty  descriptions  of  the  guide-books.  If  the  reader  is 
not  in  Berlin,  let  him  imagine  the  fragment  of  a  mediaeval 
town,  situated  on  a  river  and  fronted  by  a  bridge  ;  and 
on  the  bank  of  the  river  a  dark,  square,  massive  and 
weather-stained  pile  of  four  stories,  with  barred  windows 
on  the  ground  floor  as  defence  against  a  possibly  angry 
populace,  and  a  sentry-box  at  each  of  its  two  lofty 
wrought-iron  gates.  It  may  be,  as  Baedeker  informs  us 
it  is,  a  "  handsome  example  of  the  German  renaissance," 
but  to  the  foreigner  it  can  as  equally  suggest  a  large  and 
grimy  barracks  as  the  five-hundred-years-old  palace  of  a 
long  line  of  kings  and  emperors.  And  yet,  to  any  one 
acquainted  with  the  blood-stained  annals  of  Prussian 
history,  who  knows  something  of  the  massive  stone 
buildings  about  it  and  of  the  people  who  have  inhabited 
them,  who  strolls  through  its  interior  divided  into  sombre 
squares,  each  with  its  cold  and  bare  parade-ground,  who 
reflects  on  the  relations  between  king  and  people,  closely 
identified  by  their  historical  associations,  yet  sundered  by 
the  feudal  spirit  which  still  keeps  the  Crown  at  a  distance 
from  the  crowd,  above  all  to  the  German  versed  in  his 
country's  story — how  eloquently  it  speaks  ! 

When  one  thinks  of  the  Court  of  Berlin  one  should  not 
forget  that  the  New  Palace,  the  Emperor's  residence  at 
Potsdam,  sixteen  miles  distant  from  the  capital,  is  as 
much,  and  as  important,  a  part  of  it  as  the  royal  palace  in 
Berlin  itself.  The  Emperor  divides  his  time  between 
them,  the  former,  when  he  is  not  travelling,  being  his 
more  permanent  residence,  and  the  latter  only  claiming 
his  presence  during  the  winter  season  and  for  periods  of 
a  day  or  so  at  other  parts  of  the  year,  when  occasion 
requires  it.  It  is  only  during  the  six  or  eight  weeks  of 
the  winter  season  that  the  Empress  and  her  daughter, 
Princess  Victoria  Louise  (now  Duchess  of  Brunswick), 
go  into  residence  at  the  Berlin  royal  palace.  There  is  a 
railway  between  Potsdam  and  Berlin,  but  since  the 


u6          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

introduction  of  the  motor-car  the  Emperor  almost  always 
uses  that  means  of  conveyance  for  the  half-hour's  run 
between  his  Berlin  and  Potsdam  palaces. 

The  other  section  of  the  Court,  if  Potsdam  may  be  so 
described,  is  hardly  less  rich  in  memories  than  the  old 
palace  by  the  Spree.  Indeed  it  is  richer  from  the  cosmo- 
politan point  of  view,  for  though  Frederick  the  Great  was 
born  in  the  Berlin  Schloss  and  spent  some  of  his  time 
there,  it  was  at  Potsdam  that,  when  not  campaigning,  he 
may  be  said  to  have  lived  and  died.  To  this  day,  for  the 
foreigner,  his  personality  still  pervades  the  place,  and 
that  of  the  Emperor  sinks,  comparatively,  into  the  back- 
ground. The  tourist  who  has  pored  over  his  Baedeker 
will  learn  that  Potsdam  has  53,000  inhabitants  and  is 
"charmingly  situated" — it  depends  on  your  temperament 
what  the  charm  is,  and  to  guide-book  framers  all  tourists 
have  the  same  temperament — on  an  island  in  the  Havel 
"  which  here  expands  into  a  series  of  lakes  bounded  by 
wooded  hills."  He  will  learn  that  the  old  town-palace, 
which  few  visitors  give  a  thought  to,  was  built  by  the 
Great  Elector,  that  Frederick  the  Great  lived  here  in 
"  richly  decorated  apartments  with  sumptuous  furniture 
and  noteworthy  pictures  by  Pater,  Lancret,  and  Pesne  "  ; 
that  it  contains  a  cabinet  in  which  the  dining-table  could 
be  let  up  and  down  by  means  of  a  trap-door,  and  "where 
the  King  occasionally  dined  with  friends  without  risk  of 
being  overheard  by  his  attendants"  ;  that  the  present 
Emperor,  then  Prince  William,  lived  here  with  his  young 
wife  when  he  was  still  only  a  lieutenant.  He  will  drive 
to  the  New  Palace — now  old,  for  it  was  built  by  Frederick 
the  Great  in  1769,  during  the  Seven  Years'  War,  at  a  cost 
of  nearly  half  a  million  sterling — and  gaze  with  interest  at 
the  summer  residence  of  the  Emperor.  If  he  is  an 
American  he  may  think  of  his  multi-millionaire  fellow- 
citizen,  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  who,  when  driving  up  to 
call  on  his  erstwhile  imperial  schoolfellow  and  friend, 


THE   COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     117 

was  nearly  shot  at  by  a  sentry  for  whom  the  name 
Vanderbilt  was  no  "  Open  Sesame."  He  will  see  before 
him  a  main  building,  seven  hundred  feet  in  length,  three 
stories  high,  with  the  central  portion  surmounted  by  a 
dome,  its  chief  fa?ade  looking  towards  a  park.  The  whole, 
of  course — for  Baedeker  is  talking — forms  an  "  imposing 
pile,"  with  "mediocre  sculptures,  but  the  effect  of  the 
weathered  sandstone  figures  against  the  red  brick  is  very 
pleasing."  Here  the  Emperor's  father,  Frederick  III, 
was  born,  lived  as  Crown  Prince,  reigned*  for  ninety-nine 
days,  and  died.  Here,  too,  are  more  "apartments  of 
Frederick  the  Great,"  with  pictures  by  Rubens,  including 
an  "  Adoration  of  the  Magi,"  a  good  example  of  Watteau 
and  a  portrait  of  Voltaire  drawn  by  Frederick's  own 
hand.  In  the  north  wing  are  situated  the  present 
Emperor's  suite  of  chambers,  where  distinguished  men 
of  all  countries  have  discussed  almost  every  conceivable 
topic,  political,  social,  religious,  martial,  artistic,  financial, 
and  commercial,  with  one  of  the  most  interesting  talkers 
of  his  time.  No  bloody  tragedy  has  defiled  the  palace,  as 
did  the  murder  of  Lord  Darnley  at  Holyrood,  that  of  the 
Duke  of  Guise  (Sir  Walter  Scott's  "  Le  Balafre")  the 
chateau  of  Blois,  the  execution  of  the  Bourbon  Due 
d'Enghien  the  palace  of  Vincermes,  or  the  murder  of  the 
boy  princes  the  Tower  of  London.  But  bloodless  tragedy, 
and  exquisite  comedy,  and  farce  too,  have  doubtless  had 
their  hour  within  the  walls.  One  such  incident  of  the 
politico-tragic  kind  was  that  which  passed  only  two  years 
ago  between  the  Emperor  and  his  Imperial  Chancellor, 
when  Prince  von  Biilow  went  as  deputy  from  the 
Federal  Council,  the  Parliament,  and  the  people  to  pray 
the  Emperor  to  exercise  more  caution  in  his  public,  or 
semi-public  statements  ;  and  the  historian  may  possibly 
find  another,  and  not  without  its  touch  of  comedy,  in  the 
reception  by  the  Emperor  of  the  Chinese  prince,  who 
headed  the  "mission  of  atonement"  for  the  murder  of 


n8          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

the  Emperor's  Minister  in  Pekin  during  the  Boxer 
troubles. 

From  the  New  Palace  our  foreigner  will  probably  drive 
to  the  Marble  Palace,  which  (for  Baedeker  is  ever  at 
one's  elbow  with  the  facts)  he  will  mark  was  built  in  1796 
by  Frederick  William  II,  who  died  here,  was  completed 
in  1845  by  Frederick  William  IV,  and  was  the  residence 
of  the  present  Emperor  at  the  time  of  his  accession. 

But  while  our  foreigner  has  been  hurrying  from  one 
palace  to  another,  with  his  mind  in  a  fog  of  historical  and 
topographical  confusion — if  he  is  an  American,  half- 
hoping,  half-expecting  to  meet  the  Emperor  or  Empress 
and  secure  a  bow  from  one  or  other,  or — why  not  ? — one 
of  William's  well-known  vigorous  poignees  de  main,  there 
is  always  one  thought  predominant  in  his  mind — Sans 
Souci.  That  is  the  real  object  of  his  quest,  the  main 
attraction  that  has  brought  him,  all  unconscious  of  it,  to 
Berlin,  and  not  the  laudable,  but  wholly  mistaken  efforts 
of  the  "Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Tourist  Traffic," 
which  seeks  to  lure  the  moneyed  and  reluctant  foreigner 
to  the  German  capital.  Our  foreigner  enters  the  Park  of 
Sans  Souci  and  his  spirit  is  at  rest.  Now  he  knows 
where  he  really  is — not  in  the  wonderful  new  German 
Empire,  not  in  modern  Berlin  with  its  splendid  and  to 
him  unspeaking  streets,  its  garish  "  night-life,"  its  faultily- 
faultless  municipal  propriety,  not  in  Potsdam,  "  the  true 
cradle  of  the  Prussian  army,"  as  Baedeker,  deviating  for 
an  instant  into  metaphor,  describes  it,  but  simply  in  Sans 
Souci.  He  is  now  no  longer  in  the  twentieth  century, 
but  the  eighteenth — one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  or 
more — in  Frederick's  day,  the  period  of  pigtails,  of  giant 
grenadiers  in  the  old-time  blue  and  red  coats,  the  high 
and  fantastic  shako  made  of  metal  and  tapering  to  a 
point,  of  three-cornered  hats  resting  on  powdered  wigs,  of 
yellow  top-boots,  and  exhaling  the  general  air  of  ruffianly 
geniality  characteristic  of  the  manners  and  soldiers  of 
the  age. 


THE    COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     119 

As  our  foreigner  advances  through  the  park,  where, 
as  he  is  told,  the  Emperor  makes  a  promenade  each 
Christmas  Eve  distributing  ten-mark  pieces  (spiteful 
chroniclers  make  it  three  marks)  to  all  and  sundry  poor, 
he  will  notice  the  fountain  "  the  water  of  which  rises  to 
a  height  of  130  feet,"  with  its  twelve  figures  by  French 
artists  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  ascend  the  broad 
terraced  flight  of  marble  steps  up  which  the  present 
Crown  Prince  is  credited  with  once  urging  his  trembling 
steed — leading  to  the  Mecca  of  his  imagination,  the 
palace  Sans  Souci  itself.  The  building  is  only  one  story 
high,  not  large,  reminding  one  somewhat  of  the  Trianon 
at  Versailles,  though  lacking  the  Trianon's  finished 
lightness  and  elegance,  yet  with  its  semicircular  colonnade 
distinctly  French,  and  impressive  by  its  elevated  situation. 
The  chief,  the  enduring,  the  magical  impression,  how- 
ever, begins  to  form  as  our  foreigner  commences  his 
pilgrimage  through  the  rooms  in  which  Frederick  passed 
most  of  his  later  years.  As  he  pauses  in  the  Voltaire 
Chamber  he  imagines  the  two  great  figures,  seated  in 
stiff-backed  chairs  at  a  little  table  on  which  stand, 
perhaps,  a  pair  of  cut  Venetian  wine-glasses  and  a  tall 
bottle  of  old  Rheinish — the  great  man  of  thought 
and  the  great  man  of  action,  the  two  great  atheists 
and  freethinkers  of  Europe,  with  their  earnest,  sharply 
featured  faces,  and  their  wigs  bobbing  at  each  other, 
discussing  the  events  and  tendencies  of  their  time.  And 
how  they  must  have  talked — no  wonder  Frederick, 
though  the  idol  of  his  subjects,  withdrew  for  such 
discourse  from  the  society  of  the  day,  with  its  twaddle 
of  the  tea-cups  and  its  parade-ground  platitudes. 

As  in  our  own  time,  there  was  then  no  lack  of  stimu- 
lating topics.  The  influence  of  the  old  Catholicism  and 
the  old  feudalism  was  rapidly  diminishing,  the  night  of 
superstition  was  passing,  and  the  age  of  reason,  that  was 
to  culminate  with  such  tremendous  and  horrible  force  in 


120          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

the  French  Revolution,  was  beginning  to  dawn.  The 
encyclopaedists,  with  Diderot  and  d'Alembert  in  the  van, 
were  holding  council  in  France,  mobilizing  the  intellects 
of  the  time,  and,  like  Bacon,  taking  all  knowledge  for  their 
province,  for  a  fierce  attack  on  the  old  philosophy,  the 
old  statecraft,  the  old  art,  and  the  old  religion.  Are  such 
topics  and  such  men  to  deal  with  them  to  be  found 
to-day,  or  have  all  the  great  problems  of  humanity  and 
its  intellect  been  started,  studied,  and  resolved  ?  And  are 
motor-cars,  aeroplanes,  dances,  Dreadnoughts,  millinery, 
rag-time  reviews,  auction  bridge,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
stocks,  and  the  last  extraordinary  round  of  golf,  all  that 
is  left  for  the  present  generation  to  discuss  ? 

However,  the  guardian  of  the  palace  has  moved  on, 
the  other  members  of  the  party  are  getting  bored,  and 
our  foreigner  follows  the  guardian's  lead.  Thus  con- 
ducted, he  passes  through  half  a  dozen  rooms,  each  a 
museum  of  historical  associations — the  dining-room  with 
its  round  table  made  famous  by  Menzel's  picture  (now 
in  the  Berlin  National  Gallery)  in  which  Frederick  and 
his  guests  are  seen  seated,  but  in  which  it  is  difficult  if 
not  impossible  to  be  certain  which  is  the  host ;  the 
concert-room  with  the  clock  which  Frederick  was  in  the 
habit  of  winding  up,  arid  which  "  is  said  to  have  stopped 
at  the  precise  moment  of  his  death,  2.20  a.m., 
August  lyth,  1786 "  ;  the  death-chamber  with  its 
eloquent  and  pathetic  statue,  Magnussen's  "  Last 
Moments  of  Frederick  the  Great " ;  the  library  and 
picture  gallery.  Strangely  enough,  Baedeker  has  no 
mention  of  a  female  subject  portrayed  in  the  concert- 
room  in  all  sorts  of  attitudes  and  in  all  sorts  and  no  sort 
of  costume.  Yet  every  one  has  heard  of  La  Barberini, 
the  only  woman,  the  chroniclers  (and  Voltaire  among 
them)  assure  us,  Frederick  ever  loved.  She  was  no 
woman  of  birth  or  wit  like  the  Pompadour,  Recamier  or 
Stael,  but  of  merely  ordinary  understanding  and  the  wife 


THE   COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     121 

of  a  subordiate  official  of  the  Court.  She  charmed 
Frederick,  however,  and  may  have  loved  him.  If  so,  let 
us  remember  that  the  morals  of  those  days  were  not 
those  of  ours,  and  not  grudge  the  lonely  King  his 
enjoyment  of  her  beauty  and  amiability. 

One  thing  only  remains  for  our  foreigner  to  see — 
the  coffin  of  Frederick  in  the  old  Garrison  Church.  It 
lies  in  a  small  chamber  behind  the  pulpit  and  looks  more 
like  the  strong  box  of  a  miser  than  the  last  resting-place 
of  a  great  king.  For  such  a  man  it  seems  poor  and  mean, 
but  probably  Frederick  himself  did  not  wish  for  better. 
He  must  have  known  that  his  real  monument  would 
be  his  reputation  with  posterity.  In  fact  the  chroniclers 
agree,  and  the  noble  statue  of  Magnussen  confirms  the  im- 
pression, that  at  the  close  of  his  stormy  life  he  was  glad 
finally  to  be  at  rest  anywhere.  "  Quand  je  serai  la,"  he 
was  wont  to  say,  pointing  to  where  his  dogs  were  buried 
in  the  palace  park,  "je  serai  sans  souci." 

In  every  court  there  is  a  disposition  on  the  part  of 
courtiers  to  agree  with  everything  the  monarch  says,  to 
flatter  him  as  dexterously  as  they  can,  to  minister  to 
princely  vanity,  if  vanity  there  be,  to  "  crawl  on  their 
bellies,"  in  the  choice  language  of  hostile  court  critics, 
or  "  wag  their  tails  "  and  double  up  their  bodies  at  every 
bow ;  show,  in  short,  in  different  ways,  often  all  un- 
consciously, the  presence  of  a  servile  and  self-interested 
mind.  The  disposition  is  not  to  be  found  in  courts 
alone.  It  is  one  of  the  commonest  and  most  malignant 
qualities  of  humanity,  and  can  any  day  and  at  any 
hour  be  observed  in  action  in  any  Ministry  of  State,  any 
mercantile  office,  any  great  warehouse,  any  public  insti- 
tution, in  every  scene,  in  fact,  where  one  or  many  men  are 
dependent  for  their  living  on  the  favour  or  caprice  of 
another.  On  the  other  hand,  let  it  not  be  forgotten 
that  this  innate  tendency  of  human  nature  is  at  times 
replaced  by  another  which  has  frequently  the  same 


122  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

outward  manifestations,  but  is  not  the  same  feeling, 
the  sentiment,  namely,  of  embarrassment  arising  from 
the  fear  of  being  servile,  and  the  equally  frequent  em- 
barrassment arising  from  that  principle  which  is  always 
at  work  in  the  mind,  the  association  of  ideas,  which  in 
the  case  of  a  monarch  presents  him  to  the  ordinary 
mortal  as  embodying  ideas  of  grandeur,  power,  might, 
and  intellect  to  which  the  latter  is  unaccustomed.  Educa- 
tion, economic  changes,  and  the  art  of  manners  have  done 
much  to  conceal,  if  not  eradicate,  human  proneness  to 
servility,  and  the  Byzantinism  of  the  time  of  Caligula  and 
Nero,  of  Tiberius,  Constantine,  or  Nikiphoros,  of  the 
Stuarts  and  the  Bourbons,  has  long  been  modified  into 
respect  for  oneself  as  well  as  for  the  person  one  addresses. 
There  are,  however,  still  traces  of  the  old  evil  in  the 
German  atmosphere,  and  in  especial  a  tendency  among 
officials  of  all  grades  to  be  humble  and  submissive  to 
those  above  them  and  haughty  and  domineering  to  those 
below  them.  The  tendency  is  perhaps  not  confined  to 
Germany,  but  it  seems,  to  the  inhabitant  of  countries 
where  bureaucracy  is  not  a  powerful  caste,  to  penetrate 
German  society  and  ordinary  life  to  a  greater  degree — 
yet  not  to  a  great  degree — than  in  more  democratic 
societies. 

The  Emperor  naturally  knows  nothing  of  such  a  thing, 
for  there  is  no  one  superior  to  him  in  the  Empire  in 
point  of  rank,  and  he  is  much  too  modern,  too  well 
educated,  and  of  too  kindly  and  liberal  a  nature  to 
encourage  or  permit  Byzantinism  towards  him  on  the 
part  of  others.  Indeed  Byzantinism  was  never  a  Hohen- 
zollern  failing.  In  his  able  work  on  German  civilization 
Professor  Richard  tells  of  some  Silesian  peasants  wljo 
knelt  down  when  presenting  a  petition  to  Frederick 
William  I,  and  were  promptly  told  to  get  up,  as  "  such 
an  attitude  was  unworthy  of  a  human  being."  Only  on 
one  occasion  in  the  reign  has  an  action  of  the  Emperor's 


THE    COURT   OF   THE    EMPEROR     123 

afforded  ground  for  the  suspicion  that  he  was  for  a 
moment  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the  Byzantine  emperors 
— namely,  when  he  demanded  the  "  kotow  "  from  the 
Chinese  Prince  Tschun,  who  led  the  "  mission  of  atone- 
ment "  to  Germany.  This,  however,  was  not  really  the 
result  of  a  Byzantine  character  or  spirit,  but  of  the 
excusable  anger  of  a  man  whose  innocent  representative 
had  been  treacherously  killed. 

Of  affinity  with  the  idea  of  Byzantinism  is  that  as 
frequently  occurring  idea  in  German  court  and  ordinary 
life  conveyed  by  the  word  "  reaction."  Here  again  we 
have  one  of  those  qualities  to  be  found  among  mankind 
everywhere  and  always  :  the  instinct  opposed  to  change, 
even  to  those  changes  for  the  good  we  call  progress,  the 
disposition  that  made  Horace  deride  the  laudator  temporis 
acti  se  puero  of  his  day,  the  feeling  of  the  man  who 
laments  the  passing  of  the  "  good  old  times "  and  the 
military  veteran  who  assures  us  that  "  the  country,  sir,  is 
going  to  the  dogs."  In  political  life  such  men  are  usually 
to  be  found  professing  conservatism,  owners  of  land, 
dearer  to  them  often  than  life  itself,  which  they  fear 
political  change  will  damage  or  diminish.  In  Germany 
the  Conservative  forces  are  the  old  agrarian  aristocracy, 
the  military  nobility,  and  the  official  hierarchy,  who  make 
a  worship  of  tradition,  hold  for  the  most  part  the  tenets 
of  orthodox  Protestantism,  dread  the  growing  influence 
of  industrialism,  and  are  members  of  the  Landlords' 
Association  :  types  of  a  dying  feudalism,  disposed  to 
believe  nothing  advantageous  to  the  community  if  it 
conflicts  with  any  privilege  of  their  class.  Under  the 
name  of  Junker,  the  Conservative  landowners  of  the  region 
of  Prussia  east  of  the  Elbe,  they  have  become  everywhere 
a  byword  for  pride,  selfishness,  in  a  word — reaction. 
They  and  men  of  their  kidney  are  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  German  "  people "  in  the  English  sense,  and 
hold  themselves  vastly  superior  to  the  burghertum,  the 


i24          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

vast  middle  class.  They  dislike  the  "  academic  freedom  " 
of  the  university  professor,  would  limit  the  liberty  of  the 
press  and  restrain  the  right  of  public  meeting,  and  increase 
rather  than  curtail  the  powers  of  the  police.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  they  are  a  powerful  drag  on  the  Emperor's 
Liberal  tendencies — Liberal,  that  is,  in  the  Prussian 
sense — towards  a  comprehensive  and  well-organized  social 
policy,  they  are  at  least  reliable  supporters  of  his  Govern- 
ment for  the  military  and  naval  budgets,  since  they 
believe  as  whole-heartedly  in  the  rule  of  force  as  the 
Emperor  himself.  The  German  Conservative  would 
infinitely  prefer  a  return  to  absolute  government  to  the 
introduction  of  parliamentary  government.  At  the  same 
time  it  should  not  be  supposed  that  the  Emperor  or  his 
Chancellor,  or  even  his  Court,  are  reactionary  in  the  sense 
or  measure  in  which  the  Socialist  papers  are  wont  to 
assert.  It  is  doubtful  if  nowadays  the  Emperor  would 
venture  to  be  reactionary  in  any  despotic  way. v  Given 
that  his  monarchy  and  the  spirit  that  informs  it  are 
secure,  that  Caesar  gets  all  that  is  due  to  Caesar,  and 
that  he  and  his  Government  are  left  the  direction  of 
foreign  policy,  he  is  quite  willing  that  the  people  should 
legislate  for  themselves,  enjoy  all  the  rights  that  belong  to 
them  under  the  Rechtsstaat  established  by  Frederick  the 
Great,  and,  in  short,  enjoy  life  as  best  they  can. 


VII 

''DROPPING  THE   PILOT" 

HEINRICH  von  Treitschke,  the  German  historian, 
writing  to    a   friend,   speaks  of  the  dismissal  of 
Prince    Bismarck    as    "  an    indelible    stain    on 
Prussian   history   and   a  tragic   stroke   of    fate   the   like 
of  which  the  world   has  never  seen   since  the  days  of 
Themistocles." 

Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  indelibility  of  the  stain — 
which  must  be  taken  as  a  reflection  on  the  conduct  of 
the  Emperor ;  and  parallels  might  perhaps  be  found,  at 
least  by  students  of  English  history,  in  the  dismissal  of 
Cardinal  Wolsey  by  Henry  VIII,  or  that  of  the  elder  Pitt 
by  George  III.  But  there  may  well  be  general  agree- 
ment as  to  the  tragic  nature  of  the  fall,  for  it  was  a 
struggle  between  a  strong  personality  and  the  unknown, 
but  irresistible,  laws  of  fate. 

The  historic  quarrel  between  the  Emperor  and  his 
Chancellor  was  not  merely  the  inevitable  clash  between 
two  dispositions  fundamentally  different,  but  between — 
to  adapt  the  expression  of  a  modern  poet — "  an  age  that 
was  dying  and  one  that  was  coming  to  birth."  Old 
Prussia  was  giving  place  to  New  Germany.  The  atmo- 
sphere of  war  had  changed  to  an  atmosphere  of  peace. 
The  standards  of  education  and  comfort  were  rising  fast. 
The  old  German  idealism  was  being  pushed  aside  by 
materialism  and  commercialism,  and  the  thoughts  of  the 

nation  were  turning  from  problems  of  philosophy  and 

125 


126          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

art  to  problems  of  practical  science  and  experiment. 
Thought  was  to  be  followed  by  action.  Mankind,  after 
conversing  with  the  ancients  for  centuries,  now  began  to 
converse  with  one  another.  The  desire  for  national 
expansion,  if  it  could  not  be  gratified  by  conquest,  was 
to  be  satisfied  by  the  spread  of  German  influence,  power, 
activity,  and  enterprise  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Such  a 
collision  of  the  ages  is  tragedy  on  the  largest  scale,  for 
nothing  can  be  more  tragic — more  inevitable  or  inexorable 
— than  the  march  of  Progress. 

The  natures  of  the  two  men  were,  in  important 
respects,  fundamentally  different.  Bismarck's  nature  was 
prosaic,  primitive,  unscrupulous,  domineering :  a  type 
which  in  an  English  schoolboy  would  be  described  as  a 
bully,  with  the  modification  that  while  the  bully  in  an 
English  school  is  always  depicted  as  a  coward  at  heart 
(a  supposition,  however,  by  no  means  always  borne  out 
in  after-life),  Bismarck  had  the  courage  of  a  bull-dog. 
Moreover,  Bismarck  was  a  Conservative,  a  statesman  of 
expediency.  The  Emperor  is  a  man  of  principle ;  and 
as  expediency,  in  a  world  of  change,  is  a  note  of  Con- 
servatism, so,  in  the  same  world,  is  principle  the  leit-motiv 
of  Liberalism.  To  call  the  Emperor  a  man  of  principle 
may  appear  to  be  at  variance  with  general  opinion  as 
founded  on  exceptional  occurrences,  but  these  do  not 
supply  sufficient  material  for  a  fair  judgment,  and  there 
are  many  acts  of  his  reign  which  show  him  to  be  Liberal 
in  disposition. 

Not,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  Liberal  in  the  English 
political  sense.  Liberalism  in  England — the  two-party 
country — usually  means  a  strong  desire  to  vote  against  a 
Conservative  on  the  assumption  that  the  Conservative  is 
nearly  always  completely  wrong  and  never  completely 
right.  As  will  be  seen  later,  there  is  no  political 
Liberalism  in  the  English  sense  in  Germany.  The 
Emperor's  Liberalism  shows  itself  in  his  sympathy  with 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT"          127 

his  people  in  their  desire  for  improvement  as  a  society 
of  which  he  is  the  head,  selected  by  God  and  only 
restricted  by  a  constitutional  compact  solemnly  sworn  to 
by  the  contracting  parties.  Proofs  of  this  sympathy 
might  be  adduced — his  determination  to  carry  through 
his  grandfather's  social  policy  against  Bismarck's  wish, 
however  hostile  he  was  and  is  to  Social  Democracy  ;  his 
steadfast  peace  policy,  however  nearly  he  has  brought 
his  country  to  war  ;  his  encouragement  of  the  arts  among 
the  lower  classes,  however  limited  his  views  on  art  may 
be  ;  his  friendly  intercourse  with  people  of  all  nationalities 
and  occupations. 

The  characters  also  of  the  two  men  were  different. 
Bismarck's  was  the  result  of  civilian  training ;  the 
Emperor's  of  military  training.  Bismarck  had  small 
regard  for  manners,  and  would  have  scoffed  had  anyone 
told  him  "  manners  makyth  man "  ;  the  Emperor  is 
courtesy  itself,  as  every  one  who  meets  him  testifies. 
Bismarck  was  fond  of  eating  and  drinking,  with  the 
appetite  of  a  horse  and  the  thirst  of  a  drayman,  until  he 
was  nearly  eighty,  and  smoked  strong  cigars  from  morning 
to  night — a  very  pleasant  thing,  of  course,  if  you  can  stand 
it.  The  Emperor  has  never  cared  particularly  for  what 
are  called  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  is  fond  of  apples  and 
one  or  two  simple  German  dishes,  and  has  never  been 
what  in  Germany  is  called  a  "  chain-smoker."  Bismarck 
appears  not  to  have  had  the  faintest  interest  in  art ;  the 
Emperor,  while  of  late  disclaiming  in  all  art  company 
his  lack  of  expert  knowledge,  has  always  found  delight  in 
art's  most  classical  forms. 

Yet  the  two  men  had  some  deeply  marked  traits  of 
character  in  common.  The  Emperor,  as  was  Bismarck, 
is  Prussian,  that  is  to  say  mediaeval,  to  the  core,  notwith- 
standing that  he  had  an  English  mother  and  lived  in 
early  childhood  under  English  influences.  He  has 
always  exhibited,  as  Bismarck  always  did,  the  genuine 


128 

qualities  of  the  Prussian — self-confidence,  tenacity  of 
purpose,  absolute  trust  in  his  own  ideals  and  intolerance 
of  those  of  other  people,  impatience  of  rivalry,  selfishness 
for  the  advantage  of  Prussia  as  against  other  German 
States,  as  strong  as  that  for  the  newly  born  Empire 
against  other  countries.  Finally,  the  Emperor  is  con- 
vinced, as  Bismarck  was  convinced,  that  in  the  first  and 
last  resort,  a  society,  a  people,  a  nation,  is  based  on  force 
and  by  force  alone  can  prosper,  or  even  be  held  together. 
Neither  Bismarck  nor  the  Emperor  could  ever  sympathize 
with  those  who  look  to  a  time  when  one  strong  and 
sensible  policeman  will  be  of  more  value  to  a  community 
than  a  thousand  unproductive  soldiers. 

Long  before  he  became  Imperial  Chancellor  Bismarck 
had  done  masterly  and  important  work  for  the  country. 
In  1862  he  began  his  career  by  filling  the  post  of  interim 
Minister  President  of  Prussia  at  a  time  when  the  present 
Emperor  was  still  an  infant.  It  was  on  taking  up  the 
position  that  he  made  the  celebrated  statement  that 
"great  questions  cannot  be  decided  by  speeches  and 
majority -votes,  but  must  be  resolved  by  blood  and  iron." 
Born  in  April,  1815,  two  months  before  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  at  Schoenhausen,  in  the  Prussian  Province  of 
Saxony,  not  far  from  Magdeburg,  he  studied  at  the 
universities  of  Gottingen  and  Berlin  and  passed  two 
steps  of  the  official  ladder — Auscultator  and  Referendar — 
which  may  be  translated  respectively  protocolist  and 
junior  counsel.  His  parliamentary  career  began  in  1846, 
two  years  before  the  second  French  Revolution.  At  that 
time  Prussia  was  an  absolute  monarchy,  without  a  Consti- 
tution or  a  Parliament.  There  was  no  conscription,  that 
foundation-stone  of  Prussian  power  and  of  the  modern 
German  Empire.  Then  came  the  agitated  days  of  1848, 
the  sanguinary  "  March  Days "  in  Berlin.  Frederick 
William  IV  was  on  the  throne,  and  in  1847  permitted  the 
calling  of  a  Parliament,  the  forerunner  of  the  present 


-DROPPING   THE    PILOT'  129 

Reichstag  ;  but  only  to  represent  the  "  rights,"  not  the 
"  opinions,"  of  the  people.  "  No  piece  of  paper,"  cried 
the  King,  "  shall  come,  like  a  second  Providence,  between 
God  in  heaven  and  this  land  ! "  That,  too,  was 
Bismarck's  sentiment,  courageously  expressed  by  him 
when  the  Diet  was  debating  the  idea  of  introducing  the 
English  parliamentary  system,  and  proved  by  him  in 
character  and  conduct  until  the  day  of  his  death.  He 
would  have  made  a  splendid  Jacobite  ! 

The  three  "  March  Days,"  the  i8th,  ipth,  and  2oth  of 
March,  1848,  form  one  of  the  few  occasions  in  Prussian 
or  German  history  on  which  Crown  and  people  came 
into  direct  and  serious  conflict.  According  to  German 
accounts  of  the  episode  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution  in 
France  was  followed  by  a  large  influx  into  Berlin  of  Poles 
and  Frenchmen,  who  instigated  the  populace  to  violence. 
Collisions  with  the  police  occurred,  and  on  March  i5th 
barricades  began  to  be  erected.  Traffic  in  the  streets  was 
only  possible  with  the  aid  of  the  military.  The  King 
was  in  despair,  not  so  much,  the  accounts  say,  at  the 
danger  he  was  in  of  losing  his  throne  as  at  the  shedding 
of  the  blood  of  his  folk,  and  issued  a  proclamation 
promising  to  grant  all  desirable  reforms,  abolishing  the 
censorship  of  the  press,  and  summoning  the  Diet  to 
discuss  the  terms  of  a  Constitution.  The  citizens,  how- 
ever, continued  to  build  barricades,  made  their  way  into 
the  courtyards  of  the  palace,  and  demanded  the  with- 
drawal of  the  troops.  The  King  ordered  the  courtyards 
to  be  cleared,  the  palace  guard  advanced,  and,  either  by 
accident  or  design,  the  guns  of  two  grenadiers  went  off. 
No  one  was  hit,  but  cries  of  "  Treason  !  "  and  "  Murder  !" 
were  raised.  Within  an  hour  a  score  of  barricades  were 
set  up  in  various  parts  of  the  town  and  manned  by  a 
medley  of  workmen,  university  students,  artists,  and  even 
men  of  the  Landwehr,  or  military  reserve. 

At  this  time  there  were  about   14,000  troops   at  the 


130          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

King's  disposal,  and  with  these  the  authorities  proceeded 
against  the  mob.  A  series  of  scattered  engagements 
between  mob  and  military  began.  They  lasted  for  eight 
hours,  until  at  midnight  General  von  Prittwitz,  who  was 
in  command  of  the  troops,  was  able  to  report  to  the 
King  that  the  revolution  was  subdued. 

Next  morning,  however,  the  i9th,  numerous  depu- 
tations of  citizens  presented  themselves  at  the  palace,  and 
assuring  the  King  that  it  was  the  only  means  of  prevent- 
ing the  further  effusion  of  blood,  renewed  the  request  for 
the  withdrawal  of  the  troops.  The  King  consented, 
notwithstanding  the  opposition  of  Prince,  afterwards 
Emperor,  William,  and  the  troops  were  drawn  off  to 
Potsdam.  The  citizens  thereupon  appointed  a  National 
Guard,  which  took  charge  of  the  palace,  and  in  the  evening 
a  vast  crowd  appeared  beneath  the  King's  windows 
bearing  the  corpses  of  those  who  had  fallen  at  the 
barricades  during  the  two  preceding  days.  The  dead 
bodies  were  laid  in  rows  in  the  palace  courtyard,  and 
the  King  was  invited  out  to  see  them.  He  could  not 
but  obey,  and  bowed  to  the  crowd  as  he  stood  bareheaded 
before  the  bodies. 

It  is  clear  from  the  occurrences  in  Berlin  in  1848  that 
while  the  Prussian  idea  of  monarchy  is  deeply  rooted 
in  the  German  mind,  the  possibility  of  a  sudden  change 
in  public  sentiment  and  a  radical  alteration  of  the 
relations  between  Crown  and  people  are  never  at  any 
time  to  be  wholly  disregarded.  Hence  it  is  that  the 
Emperor  and  his  Government  are  so  insistent  on  the 
doctrine  of  Heaven-granted  sovereignty,  so  ready  to 
support  more  or  less  autocratic  monarchies  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  and  so  sensitive  to  popular  movements 
like  Anarchism  and  Nihilism  in  Russia,  or  the  always- 
smouldering  Polish  agitation  and  the  propaganda  of  the 
Social  Democracy  in  Germany.  When  King  Frederick 
William  IV  said  to  his  assembled  generals  at  Potsdam  a 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT"          131 

week  after  the  "  March  Days,"  "  Never  have  I  felt  more 
free  or  more  secure  than  when  under  the  protection  of 
my  burghers,"  his  words  were  drowned  in  the  buzz 
of  murmurs  and  the  angry  clanking  of  swords.  The 
Emperor  to-day  might,  or  might  not,  endorse  the  words 
of  his  ancestor.  Most  probably  he  would  not  ;  for, 
judging  by  his  speeches,  his  care  for  the  army,  the  mili- 
tary state  with  which  he  surrounds  himself,  and  his 
habitual  appearance  in  uniform,  he,  though  in  truth  far 
more  a  civil  monarch  than  the  War  Lord  foreign  writers 
delight  in  painting  him,  is  evidently  determined  to  rely 
only  on  his  soldiers  for  every  eventuality  at  home  as  well 
as  abroad. 

Perhaps  the  -best  German  authorities  on  Bismarck's 
falling-out  with  the  young  Emperor  are  the  statements 
regarding  it  to  be  found  in  the  memoranda  supplied  at 
the  time  by  Prince  Bismarck  himself  to  Dr.  Moritz 
Busch  ;  the  Memoirs  of  Prince  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, 
subsequently  Imperial  Chancellor;  and  the  monograph 
on  Bismarck  by  Dr.  Hans  Blum,  one  of  the  Chancellor's 
confidants.  The  memoranda  supplied  to  Busch  make 
regrettably  few  references  to  the  subject,  beyond  giving 
the  terms  of  the  official  resignation  and  some  scanty 
addenda  thereto  ;  but  enough  is  said  generally  by  Busch 
concerning  Bismarck's  conversations  to  show  that  the 
Chancellor  was  deeply  mortified  by  his  dismissal. 
Bismarck  indeed  expressly  denies  this  in  a  conversational 
statement  quoted  by  an  able  Bismarckian  writer  of  our 
own  time,  Dr.  Paul  Liman  ;  but  in  view  of  subsequent 
events  and  statements  the  denial  can  hardly  be  taken  as 
sincere.  The  passage  referred  to  is  as  follows  : — 

"  I  bear  no  grudge  against  my  young  master,  who  is 
fiery  and  lively.  He  wishes  to  make  all  men  happy,  and 
that  is  very  natural  at  his  age.  I,  for  my  part,  believe 
perhaps  less  in  this  possibility,  and  have  told  him  so  too. 
It  is  very  natural  that  a  mentor  like  myself  does  not 


132          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

please  him,  and  that  he  therefore  rejects  my  advice.  An 
old  carthorse  and  a  young  courser  go  ill  in  harness 
together.  Only  politics  are  not  so  easy  as  a  chemical 
combination  :  they  deal  with  human  beings.  I  wish 
certainly  that  his  experiments  may  succeed,  and  am  not 
in  the  least  angry  with  him.  I  stand  towards  him  like 
a  father  whom  a  son  has  grieved  ;  the  father  may  surfer 
thereby,  but  all  the  same  he  says  to  himself,  '  He  is  a  fine 
young  fellow.'  When  I  was  young  I  followed  my  King 
everywhere  :  now  that  I  am  old  I  can  no  longer  accom- 
pany my  master  when  he  travels  so  far.  Accordingly  it 
is  unavoidable  that  counsellors  who  remained  closer  to 
him  should  win  his  confidence  at  my  expense.  He  is 
very  easily  influenced  when  one  puts  before  him  ideas 
which  he  supposes  will  happily  affect  the  condition  of 
the  people,  and  he  can  hardly  wait  to  put  them  into 
operation.  The  Kaiser  will  achieve  reputation  at  once  : 
I  have  my  own  to  watch  over,  to  defend.  I  have  sacri- 
ficed myself  for  renown  and  will  not  place  it  in 
jeopardy." 

Prince  Hohenlohe's  Memoirs  are  much  more  valuable 
in  respect  of  positive  information,  and  especially  in 
supplying  an  account  of  the  incident  taken  from  the  lips 
of  the  Emperor  himself.  The  Prince  was  without  his 
great  predecessor's  ability,  but  was  much  more  amiable 
and  sincere.  He  was,  moreover,  a  friend  of  both  the 
parties  concerned,  and  he  impartially  jotted  down  events 
at  the  time  they  occurred.  Lastly,  if  he  was  a  courtier  at 
heart,  he  was  that  not  wholly  unknown  thing,  an  honest 
one.  Dr.  Hans  Blum  is  obviously  a  partisan  of  the  great 
Chancellor's,  but  he  may  also  be  referred  to  for  a  fairly 
connected  account  of  the  fall  and  the  events  that  suc- 
ceeded it  up  to  the  time  of  Bismarck's  death  on 
July  30,  1898. 

Apart  from  the  differences  in  the  ages  and  tempera- 
ments of  the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor,  there  were 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT"          133 

differences  in  their  views  as  to  certain  measures  of  policy. 
There  was  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  German  policy 
regarding  Russia.  Friendship  with  that  country  had  been 
the  policy  of  both  Emperor  William  I  and  Bismarck,  and 
the  latter  had  effected  a  reinsurance  treaty  with  Russia, 
stipulating  for  Russian  neutrality  in  case  of  a  war  between 
Germany  and  France,  notwithstanding  the  subsistence  of 
the  Triple  Alliance  between  Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy. 
The  reinsurance  treaty,  which  had  been  made  for  a  period 
of  three  years,  was  now  about  to  expire,  and  while 
Bismarck  desired  its  renewal,  the  Emperor,  in  a  spirit  of 
loyalty  to  Austria,  was  against  the  renewal,  and  the 
treaty  was  not  renewed.  This  was  the  "new  course" 
as  it  regarded  Russia.  The  difference  with  regard  to  the 
anti-Socialist  Laws  has  been  referred  to  in  our  chapter 
on  the  accession. 

The  Royal  Order  of  September,  1852,  which  has  been 
mentioned  as  leading  immediately  to  the  resignation, 
regulated  intercourse  between  the  Prussian  Ministers  and 
the  Crown,  its  chief  provision  being  that  only  the  Minister 
President,  and  not  individual  Ministers,  should  have 
audience  of  the  Emperor  regarding  matters  of  home  and 
foreign  policy.  The  Emperor  desired  the  abrogation  of 
the  Order,  for  he  wished  to  consult  with  the  Ministers 
individually.  The  text  of  Bismarck's  official  resignation, 
after  describing  the  origin  of  the  Order,  continues  :  "  If 
each  individual  Minister  can  receive  commands  from  his 
Sovereign  without  previous  arrangement  with  his  col- 
leagues, a  coherent  policy,  for  which  some  one  is  to  be 
responsible,  is  an  impossibility.  It  would  be  impossible 
for  any  of  the  Ministers,  and  especially  for  the  Minister 
President,  to  bear  the  constitutional  responsibility  for  the 
Cabinet  as  a  whole.  Such  a  provision  as  that  contained 
in  the  Order  of  1852  could  be  dispensed  with  under  the 
absolute  monarchy  and  could  also  be  dispensed  with 
to-day  if  we  returned  to  absolutism  without  ministerial 


134          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

responsibility.  But  according  to  the  constitutional 
arrangements  now  legally  in  force  the  control  of  the 
Cabinet  by  a  President  under  the  Order  of  1852  is 
indispensable." 

The  Emperor  replied  to  Prince  Bismarck's  resignation 
in  a  communication  which  the  reader,  according  to  his 
disposition,  will  regard  as  an  effusion  of  the  heart, 
immensely  creditable  to  its  composer,  a  model  of  an 
official  reply  as  demanded  by  circumstances,  a  striking 
example  of  the  art  of  throwing  dust  in  the  public  eye, 
or  an  equally  striking  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
excusable  hypocrisy.  It  was  as  follows  : — 

"  MY  DEAR  PRINCE, — With  deep  emotion  I  learn  from  your  request 
of  the  1 8th  instant  that  you  have  decided  to  retire  from  the  offices 
which  you  have  filled  for  long  years  with  incomparable  success. 
I  had  hoped  not  to  have  been  compelled  to  entertain  the  thought  of 
separation  during  our  lives.  While,  however,  in  full  consciousness 
of  the  important  consequences  of  your  retirement,  I  am  forced  to 
accustom  myself  to  the  thought.  1  do  so,  it  is  true,  with  a  heavy 
heart,  but  in  the  strong  confidence  that  the  grant  of  your  request 
will  contribute  as  much  as  possible  to  the  protection  and  preserva- 
tion for  as  long  as  possible  of  a  life  and  strength  of  unreplaceable 
value  to  the  Fatherland. 

"  The  grounds  you  offer  for  your  resignation  convince  me  that  any 
further  attempt  to  induce  you  to  reconsider  your  determination 
would  have  no  prospect  of  success.  I  acquiesce,  therefore,  in 
your  wish  by  hereby  graciously  releasing  you  from  your  offices 
as  Imperial  Chancellor,  President  of  my  State  Ministry,  and  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  trust  that  your  counsels  and  energy,  your 
loyalty  and  devotion,  will  not  be  wanting  to  me  and  the  country 
in  the  future  also. 

"  I  have  considered  it  as  one  of  the  most  valued  privileges  in  my 
life  that  at  the  commencement  of  my  reign  I  had  you  at  my  side  as 
my  first  counsellor.  What  you  have  done  and  achieved  for  Prussia 
and  Germany,  what  you  have  done  for  my  House,  my  ancestors,  and 
me,  will  remain  to  me  and  the  German  people  in  grateful  and 
imperishable  memory.  But  also  in  foreign  countries  your  wise 
and  energetic  peace  policy,  which  I,  too,  in  the  future  also,  as 
a  result  of  sincere  conviction,  decide  to  take  as  the  guiding  line 
of  my  conduct,  will  be  always  gloriously  recognized.  It  is  not  in 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT'  135 

my  power  to  requite  your  services  as  they  deserve.  I  must  rest 
satisfied  with  assuring  you  of  my  own  and  the  country's  ineffaceable 
thanks.  As  a  sign  of  this  thanks  I  confer  on  you  the  rank  of  a  Duke 
of  Lauenburg.  I  will  also  send  you  a  life-sized  picture  of  myself. 

"  God  bless  you,  my  dear  Prince,  and  grant  you  still  many  years 
of  an  old  age  undisturbed  and  blessed  with  the  consciousness  of  duty 
faithfully  done. 

"  In  this  disposition  I  remain  to  you  and  yours  in  the  future  also 
your  sincere,  obliged,  and  grateful  Emperor  and  King, 

WILLIAM  I.R." 

The  Emperor  has  never,  so  far  as  is  publicly  known, 
issued,  or  caused  to  be  issued,  an  official  account  of  the 
episode  and  its  peripeties,  but  the  story  he  poured,  evi- 
dently out  of  a  full  heart,  into  the  ears  of  Prince 
Hohenlohe,  then  Statthalter  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  during 
a  midnight  drive  from  the  railway  station  at  Hagenau 
to  the  hunting  lodge  at  Sufflenheim,  is  an  historical 
document  of  practically  official  authenticity.  It  appears 
as  follows  in  the  Prince's  Memoirs  : — 

"  STRASBURG,  26  April,  1890. 

"  On  the  evening  of  the  23rd,  nine  o'clock,  I  drove  with 
Thaden  and  Moritz  to  Hagenau,  there  to  await  the  arrival 
of  the  Emperor.  We  spent  the  evening  with  circle-officer 
Klemm.  I  went  to  bed  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  guest-room, 
and  slept  until  half-past  twelve.  Moritz  and  Thaden 
drove  to  the  station  with  a  view  to  changing  their  clothes 
in  the  train.  At  one  o'clock  I  was  again  at  the  station, 
when  the  Emperor  punctually  arrived.  I  presented  the 
gentlemen  to  him,  and  turned  over  General  Hahnke  to 
Baron  Charpentier  and  Lieutenant  Cramer,  for  them 
to  conduct  him  to  the  hunting  ground.  Our  journey 
lasted  about  an  hour,  during  which  the  Emperor  related 
without  a  pause  the  whole  story  of  his  quarrel  with 
Bismarck.  According  to  this  the  coolness  had  already 
begun  in  December.  The  Emperor  then  demanded  that 
something  should  be  done  about  the  Working  Class  Ques- 
tion. The  Chancellor  was  against  doing  anything.  The 


136          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Emperor  held  the  view  that  if  the  Government  did  not 
take  the  initiative,  the  Reichstag,  i.e.  the  Socialists,  Centre 
and  Progressives,  would  take  the  matter  in  hand,  and  then 
the  Government  would  lag  behind.  The  Chancellor 
wanted  to  lay  the  anti-Socialist  Bill  with  the  expulsion 
paragraph  again  before  the  Reichstag,  dissolving  the 
chamber  if  it  did  not  accept  the  Bill,  and  then,  if  it  came 
to  disturbances,  to  take  energetic  measures.  The  Emperor 
objected,  saying  that  if  his  grandfather,  after  a  long  and 
glorious  reign,  were  forced  to  repress  disturbances  no  one 
would  think  ill  of  him.  It  was  different  in  his  case,  who 
had  as  yet  accomplished  nothing.  People  would  reproach 
him  with  beginning  his  reign  by  shooting  down  his 
subjects.  He  was  ready  to  act,  but  he  wished  to  do 
it  with  a  good  conscience  after  endeavouring  to  redress 
the  well-founded  grievances  of  the  workmen,  or  at  least 
after  doing  everything  to  meet  their  justifiable  claims. 

"The  Emperor  therefore  demanded  at  a  ministerial 
conference  the  submission  of  ministerial  edicts  which 
should  contain  what  subsequently  they  in  fact  did  contain. 
Bismarck  would  not  hear  of  it.  The  Emperor  then  laid 
the  question  before  the  Council  of  State,  and  eventually 
obtained  the  edicts  in  spite  of  Bismarck's  opposition. 
Bismarck,  however,  secretly  continued  his  opposition, 
and  tried  to  persuade  Switzerland  to  persevere  with  its 
idea  of  an  International  Labour  Conference.  The  attempt 
was  rendered  nugatory  by  the  loyal  attitude  of  the  Swiss 
Minister  in  Berlin,  Roth.  At  the  very  same  time  Bismarck 
was  trying  to  influence  the  diplomatists  against  the 
conference. 

"The  relations  between  the  Emperor  and  Bismarck, 
already  shaken  by  these  dissensions,  were  still  further 
embittered  by  the  question  of  the  Cabinet  Order  of  1852. 
Bismarck  had  often  advised  the  Emperor  to  summon  the 
Ministers  to  him.  This  the  Emperor  did,  and  as  the 
intercourse  became  more  frequent  Bismarck  took  it  ill, 


"  DROPPING   THE    PILOT"          137 

was  jealous,  and  dragged  out  the  Order  of  1852  so  as 
to  keep  Ministers  from  the  Emperor.  The  Emperor 
resisted  and  acquired  the  abrogation  of  the  Cabinet 
Order.  Bismarck  at  first  agreed,  but  gave  no  further 
sign  in  the  matter.  The  Emperor  now  demanded  either 
that  the  recission  of  the  Order  should  be  laid  before  him, 
or  that  Bismarck  should  resign — a  demand  which  the 
Emperor  communicated  to  Bismarck  through  General 
von  Hahnke.  The  Chancellor  delayed,  but  at  length 
gave  in  the  resignation  on  March  i8th.  It  should  be 
added  that  already,  at  the  beginning  of  February, 
Bismarck  had  told  the  Emperor  that  he  would  retire. 
Afterwards,  however,  he  declared  that  he  had  thought 
the  position  over  and  would  remain — a  thing  not  agree- 
able to  the  Emperor,  though  he  made  no  remonstrance 
until  the  affair  of  the  Cabinet  Order  came  in  addition. 
The  visit  of  Windthorst  to  the  Chancellor  also  gave  rise  to 
unpleasantness,  though  it  was  not  the  deciding  factor.  In 
any  case  the  last  three  weeks  were  filled  with  disagreeable 
conversations  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor. 
It  was,  as  the  Emperor  expressed  it,  a  '  devil  of  a  time/ 
and  the  question  was,  as  the  Emperor  himself  said, 
whether  the  dynasty  Bismarck  or  the  dynasty  Hohen- 
zollern  should  reign.  The  Emperor  spoke  very  angrily, 
too,  about  the  article  in  the  Hamburg  News.  In  foreign 
policy  Bismarck,  according  to  the  Emperor,  went  his  own 
way,  and  kept  back  from  the  Emperor  much  of  what  he 
did.  '  Yes,'  he  said,  '  Bismarck  had  it  conveyed  to  St. 
Petersburg  that  I  wanted  to  adopt  an  anti-Russian  policy. 
But  for  that,'  the  Emperor  added,  '  he  had  no  proofs.' 

"This  conversation,"  concludes  Prince  Hohenlohe, 
"  between  the  Emperor  and  myself  was  told  partly  on 
the  way  to  the  lodge  and  partly  on  the  way  back. 
Between  came  the  shooting  ;  but  there  was  no  sport,  as 
the  Emperor  took  his  stand  in  the  dark  under  a  tree  on 
which  was  a  cock  that  did  not  '  call.'  " 


138          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

The  following  further  extracts  from  the  Hohenlohe 
Memoirs  are  given  rather  with  the  object  of  showing 
the  state  of  the  political  and  social  atmosphere  in  which 
the  quarrel  took  place  than  as  throwing  any  fresh  light 
on  its  course.  In  June  of  the  preceding  year  (1889) 
occurs  an  entry  which  registers  the  first  signs  of  the 
coming  storm.  Prince  Hohenlohe  is  telling  of  a  visit 
he  made  in  June  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  whom 
he  found  irritated  by  Bismarck's  proposal,  made  in  con- 
nection with  the  arrest  of  a  Prussian  police  officer  by  the 
Swiss,  to  close  the  frontier  against  the  canton  Aargau. 
The  Grand  Duke,  the  Prince  relates,  quoted  Herbert 
Bismarck  as  saying  he  "  could  not  understand  his  father 
any  longer  and  that  people  were  beginning  to  believe 
he  was  not  right  in  his  head." 

The  next  entry  in  the  Journal  is  dated  Strasburg, 
August  24th.  It  concerns  another  meeting  with  the 
Grand  Duke,  who  now  told  him  that  Bismarck  had 
changed  his  views  and  that  these  oscillations  had  puzzled 
the  Emperor  and  at  the  same  time  heightened  his  self- 
consciousness  ;  moreover,  that  the  Emperor  noticed  that 
things  were  being  kept  back  from  him  and  was  becoming 
suspicious.  There  had  already  been  a  collision  between 
the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor  and  the  latter  might 
have  to  go.  What  then  ?  Probably  the  Emperor  thought 
of  conducting  foreign  policy  himself — but  that,  added  the 
Grand  Duke,  would  be  very  dangerous. 

The  feeling  at  Court  regarding  Bismarck's  fall  is  shown 
by  a  passage  in  the  Memoirs  about  this  time.  It  runs  : 
"At  1.30  p.m.  dinner  (at  the  palace)  at  which  I  sat 
between  Stosch  and  Kameke.  The  former  told  me  much 
about  his  own  quarrel  with  Bismarck,  and  was  as  gay  as 
a  snow-king  that  he  can  now  speak  freely  and  that  the 
great  man  is  no  longer  to  be  feared.  This  comfortable 
sentiment  is  obvious  here  on  all  sides." 

The  anecdote  still   current  in   Berlin,   that    Bismarck 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT'1          139 

actually  threw  an  inkstand  at  the  Emperor's  head  is 
reduced  to  its  proper  proportions  by  the  following  entry  : 
"The  Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  with  whom  I  was  yesterday, 
knows  a  good  deal  about  the  recent  crisis.  He  says  the 
cause  of  the  breach  between  the  Emperor  and  Chancellor 
was  a  question  of  power,  and  that  all  other  differences 
of  opinion  about  social  legislation  and  other  things  were 
only  secondary.  The  chief  ground  was  the  Cabinet 
Order  of  1852,  which  Bismarck  pressed  on  the  attention 
of  the  Ministers  without  the  Emperor's  knowledge,  and  so 
hindered  them  from  going  to  make  their  reports  to  the 
Emperor.  The  Emperor  wanted  the  Order  rescinded, 
while  Bismarck  was  against  it.  Nor  had  the  conversation 
with  Windthorst  led  to  the  breach.  A  talk  between  the 
Emperor  and  Bismarck  about  this  conversation  is  said 
to  have  been  so  tempestuous  that  the  Emperor  subse- 
quently said  when  describing  it,  '  He  (Bismarck)  all 
but  threw  the  inkstand  at  me.' "  To  Hohenlohe  Bismarck 
said,  as  Hohenlohe  remarked  that  the  resignation  had 
surprised  him,  "  Me  also,"  and  that  three  weeks  before 
he  did  not  think  things  would  end  as  they  had.  Bismarck 
added  :  "  However,  it  was  to  be  expected,  for  the 
Emperor  is  now  quite  determined  to  rule  alone." 

Finally  the  Prince's  Journal  has  the  following  :  "  Two 
things  struck  me  in  these  last  three  days  :  one  that  no 
one  has  any  time  and  every  one  is  in  a  greater  hurry 
than  before  ;  and  secondly,  that  individualities  have 
expanded.  Every  individual  is  conscious  of  himself, 
while  before,  under  the  predominating  influence  of 
Prince  Bismarck,  individualities  shrank  and  were  kept 
down.  Now  they  are  all  swollen  like  sponges  placed 
in  water.  That  has  its  advantages,  but  also  its  dangers. 
The  single-minded  will  is  lacking." 

The  period  between  the  great  Chancellor's  fall  and  his 
death  nine  years  later  was  marked  by  so  many  incidents 
as  to  make  it  almost  as  meuvemente  as  the  period  of  the 


140          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

fall  itself.  He  retired  to  Friedrichsruh,  all  the  more 
immediately  as  the  new  Chancellor,  General  von  Caprivi, 
showed  such  indecent  haste  in  taking  possession  of  the 
official  residence  that  a  portion  of  Bismarck's  furniture 
was  broken  and  rendered  useless.  That  Bismarck  retired 
with  the  angry  feelings  of  a  Coriolanus  in  his  heart,  or, 
as  Anglo-Saxon  slang  would  have  it,  of  a  "  bear  with  a 
sore  head,"  became  evident  only  a  few  weeks  later.  He 
was  visited  by  the  inevitable  interviewer,  and  chose  the 
Hamburg  News  as  the  medium  of  communicating  to 
the  world  his  opinion  of  the  new  regime  and  the  men 
who  were  conducting  it ;  and  made  use  of  that  paper 
with  such  instant  vigour  and  acerbity  that  little  more  than 
two  months  from  his  retirement  elapsed  before  the  new 
Chancellor  thought  it  advisable  to  issue  instructions  to 
Germany's  diplomatic  representatives  warning  them  care- 
fully to  distinguish  between  the  "  present  sentiments  and 
views  of  the  Duke  of  Lauenburg  and  those  of  the  erst- 
while Prince  Bismarck,"  and  to  pay  no  serious  attention 
to  the  former.  Bismarck  replied  in  the  Hamburg  News 
that  he  would  not  allow  his  mouth  to  be  closed,  and  set 
about  proving  that  he  meant  what  he  said.  Nothing  the 
men  of  the  "  new  course "  could  do  met  with  his  ap- 
proval. The  first  thing  he  fell  foul  of  was  the  Anglo- 
German  agreement  of  July  i,  1890,  which  gave  Germany 
Heligoland  in  exchange  for  Zanzibar,  deploring  the 
badness  of  the  bargain  for  Germany,  and  evidently  not 
foreseeing  the  importance  that  island's  position,  com- 
manding the  approaches  to  the  mouths  of  the  Elbe  and 
the  Weser,  was  afterwards  to  possess.  Besides  the 
friendliness  with  England,  the  detachment  of  Germany 
from  Russia  in  favour  of  Austria,  also  a  feature  of  the 
"new  course,"  did  not  please  him  as  tending  to  drive 
Russia  into  the  arms  of  France. 

His  prescience,  however,  in  this  respect  was  demon- 
strated  when  a  year   later  the   Czar  saluted   a    French 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT'  141 

squadron  in  the  harbour  of  Cronstadt  to  the  strains  of 
the  "  Marseillaise "  and  signed  a  secret  agreement  that 
was  alluded  to  four  years  later  by  the  French  Premier, 
M.  Ribot,  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies,  who  spoke 
of  Russia  as  "  our  ally,"  and  was  publicly  announced  in 
1897,  on  the  occasion  of  President  Felix  Faure's  visit  to 
St.  Petersburg,  by  the  Czar's  now  famous  employment 
of  the  words  "  deux  nations  amies  et  alliees." 

The  ex-Chancellor  was  as  little  satisfied  with  the  new 
tariff  treaties  entered  into  by  General  Caprivi  with  Austria, 
Italy,  Belgium,  and  other  countries,  which  the  Emperor, 
wiser,  as  events  have  shown,  than  his  former  Minister, 
characterized  on  their  passage  by  Parliament  as  the 
country's  "  salvation "  (erne  rettende  Tat).  The  ex- 
Chancellor's  caustic  but  mistaken  criticism  was  punished 
by  the  calculated  neglect  of  the  Berlin  authorities  to 
invite  him  to  the  ceremonies  attending  the  celebration 
of  the  ninetieth  birthday  of  his  old  comrade,  General  von 
Moltke,  in  October,  1890,  and  that  of  his  funeral  in  the 
following  April :  still  more  publicly  punished  in  connexion 
with  the  marriage  of  his  son  Herbert. 

The  wedding  of  the  latter  to  Countess  Marguerite 
Hoyos  was  to  take  place  in  Vienna  on  June  21,  1892,  and 
on  the  i8th  Prince  Bismarck  started  with  his  family  to 
attend  it.  The  journey  was  a  species  of  triumphal 
progress  to  Vienna,  but  it  was  to  end  in  disappointment 
and  chagrin.  As  the  result  of  representations  from 
Germany,  made  doubtless  with  the  Emperor's  assent,  if 
not  at  his  suggestion,  Bismarck  was  met  on  his  arrival 
with  the  news  that  the  German  Ambassador,  Prince  Reuss, 
and  the  Embassy  staff  had  orders  to  absent  themselves 
from  the  wedding,  that  the  widow  of  the  Crown  Prince 
Rudolph,  who  had  accepted  a  card  of  invitation  to  it, 
had  suddenly  left  Vienna,  and  that  the  Emperor  Franz 
Joseph  would  not  receive  him.  The  German  action  was 
explained  by  the  publication  two  months  later  of  the 


142  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

edict,  stigmatized  by  Bismarck  as  an  "  Urias  Letter," 
in  which  Caprivi  warned  foreign  Governments  against 
attaching  any  importance  to  the  utterances  of  the  Duke 
of  Lauenburg.  The  Bismarckian  and  anti-Bismarckian 
storm  came  up  afresh  in  Germany.  Bismarck  was 
reproached  by  the  Government  as  "  injuring  monarchical 
feeling,"  and  by  his  enemies  as  a  traitor  to  his  country  ; 
while  the  angry  statesman  published  a  statement  express- 
ing the  opinion  that  "  the  control  of  private  social  inter- 
course abroad,  and  the  influencing  of  dinner  invitations, 
were  not  tasks  for  which  high  officers  of  State  were 
selected  nor  public  money  for  the  payment  of  diplomatic 
representatives  voted  "  :  doubting,  at  the  same  time,  "  if 
the  foreign  archives  of  any  other  country  than  Germany 
could  show  a  parallel  to  the  incident." 

The  storm,  notwithstanding,  had  a  good  effect,  for  it 
brought  out  in  bold  relief  the  immense  regard  and  respect 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  his  countrymen  entertained 
for  the  chief  architect  of  their  Empire ;  and  when 
Bismarck  fell  ill  at  Kissingen  in  1893  the  Emperor, 
subordinating  his  political  animosities  to  the  chivalrous 
instincts  of  his  nature,  telegraphed  his  sorrow  to  the 
patient  and  offered  to  lend  him  one  of  the  royal  castles 
for  the  purpose  of  his  convalescence.  Bismarck  declined, 
but  not  ungratefully,  and  the  way  to  a  reconciliation 
was  opened.  Next  year,  1894,  Bismarck  suffered  from 
influenza,  and  when  this  time  the  Emperor  sent  an 
adjutant  to  Friedrichsruh  to  express  his  regret,  invited 
him  to  attend  the  festivities  on  the  forthcoming  royal 
birthday,  and  sent  along  with  the  invitation  a  flask  of 
Steinberger  Cabinet  from  the  imperial  cellar  in  charac- 
teristic German  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  his  feelings,  the 
country  was  delighted.  Bismarck  accepted  the  invita- 
tion and  doubtless  drank  the  Steinberger  ;  and  the  visit 
to  Berlin  followed  in  due  time. 

The  reconciliation  was  completed  amid  sympathetic 


"DROPPING   THE    PILOT'  143 

popular  rejoicing.  The  Emperor  sent  his  brother,  Prince 
Henry,  to  bring  the  ex-Chancellor  from  the  railway 
station  to  the  palace,  where  the  Emperor  himself,  sur- 
rounded by  a  brilliant  staff,  stood  to  welcome  the  guest. 
Bismarck  spent  the  day  at  the  palace  with  the  Royal 
Family  and  was  taken  back  to  the  railway  station  in  the 
evening  by  the  Emperor.  A  few  days  later  the  Emperor 
returned  the  visit  at  Friedrichsruh. 

The  quiet  of  the  ex-Chancellor's  last  years  was  once 
unpleasantly  affected  by  the  Reichstag  in  1895,  at  the 
instance  of  his  parliamentary  enemies,  rejecting,  to  its 
everlasting  discredit,  a  proposal  for  an  official  vote  of 
congratulation  to  the  ex-Chancellor  on  his  eightieth  birth- 
day ;  but  against  this  unpleasantness  may  be  set  his  grati- 
fication at  the  receipt  of  a  telegram  from  the  Emperor 
expressing  his  "deepest  indignation"  at  the  rejection. 

Prince  Bismarck  died  on  July  3oth,  1898,  and  was 
laid  to  rest  at  Friedrichsruh  in  the  presence  of  the 
Emperor  and  Empress,  while  the  world  paused  for  a 
moment  in  its  occupations  to  discuss  with  sympathetic 
admiration  the  dead  man's  personality  and  career. 
Bismarck's  spirit  is  still  abroad  in  Germany,  and  the 
popular  memory  of  him  is  as  fresh  now  as  though  he 
died  but  yesterday.  It  is  more  than  probable,  much 
rather  is  it  certain,  that  all  trace  of  irritation  with  the 
proud  old  Chancellor  has  long  faded  from  the  Emperor's 
mind  :  indeed  at  no  time  does  there  seem  to  have  been 
sentiments  *>f  personal  or  permanent  rancour  on  one  side 
or  the  other.  The  episode,  in  short,  was  an  inevitable 
collision  of  ages,  temperaments,  and  times,  regrettable  no 
doubt  as  a  possibly  harmful  example  of  political  discord 
among  the  leaders  of  the  nation,  but — with  due  respect 
for  the  judgment  of  so  capable  an  historian  as  von 
Treitschke — leaving  no  "  indelible  stain  "  either  on  the 
pages  of  German  history  or  on  the  reputations  of  Bismarck 
or  the  Emperor. 


VIII 

SPACIOUS  TIMES 
1891-1899 

A  GREAT  English  poet  sings  of  the  "spacious  days" 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  From  the  German  stand- 
point the  decade  from  the  fall  of  Bismarck  to  the 
end  of  the  century  may  not  inaptly  be  described  as  the 
spacious  days  of  William  II  and  the  modern  German 
Empire.  To  the  Englishman  the  actual  territorial  ac- 
quisitions of  Germany  during  the  period  must  seem  com- 
paratively insignificant,  but,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  Emperor's  speeches,  the  building  of  the  German  navy, 
the  Caprivi  commercial  treaties,  the  growth  of  friendly 
relations  and  of  trade  and  intercourse  with  America, 
North  and  South,  they  mean  the  opening  of  a  new  era  in 
the  history  of  the  Empire — the  era  of  Weltpolitik. 

Heligoland  was  obtained  in  exchange  for  Zanzibar  in 
1890,  and  is  now  regarded  by  Germans  much  as  Gib- 
raltar or  Malta  is  regarded  by  Englishmen.  The  first  Kiel 
regatta,  due  solely  to  the  initiative  of  the  Emperor,  and 
starting  the  development  of  sport  in  all  fields  which  is  a 
feature  of  modern  German  progress,  ethical  and  physical, 
was  held  in  1894.  The  Caprivi  commercial  treaties  were 
concluded  within  the  period.  The  Kiel  Canal,  connecting 
the  Baltic  and  North  Sea,  and  giving  the  German  fleet 
access  to  all  the  open  waters  of  the  earth,  was  opened  in 
1895.  In  1896  the  Kruger  telegram  testified  to  imperial 
interest  in  South  African  developments.  The  Hamburg- 

144 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  145 

Amerika  Line  now  sent  a  specially  fast  mail  and  passenger 
steamer  across  the  Atlantic.  The  district  of  Kiautschau 
was  leased  from  China  in  1898,  securing  Germany  a  foot- 
hold and  naval  base  in  the  Far  East.  In  the  same  year 
the  modern  Oriental  policy  of  the  Empire  was  inaugurated 
by  the  Emperor's  visit  to  Palestine  and  his  declaration  in 
the  course  of  it  that  he  would  be  the  friend  of  Turkey  and 
of  the  three  hundred  millions  of  Mohammedans  who  re- 
cognized the  Sultan  as  their  spiritual  head.  To  this  year 
also  belongs  the  measure,  the  most  important  in  its  con- 
sequences and  significance  of  the  reign  hitherto,  the 
passing  of  the  First  Navy  Law.  Finally,  in  1899  Ger- 
many acquired  the  Caroline  Islands  by  purchase  from 
Spain,  and  certain  Samoan  Islands  by  agreement  with 
England  and  America. 

Nothing  was  more  natural  as  a  result  of  the  new  world- 
policy  than  a  change  in  the  mental  outlook  of  the  people. 
It  inaugurated  in  Germany  an  era  somewhat  analogous 
to  the  era  inaugurated  in  England  by  the  widening  and 
brightening  of  the  Englishman's  horizon  under  Elizabeth. 
The  analogy  may  not  be  closely  maintainable  throughout, 
but,  generally  speaking,  just  as  the  eyes  of  Englishmen 
suddenly  saw  the  possibilities  of  expansion  disclosed  to 
them  by  Drake,  Raleigh,  and  Frobisher,  so  the  Emperor's 
appeals,  with  the  pursuance  of  German  colonial  policy 
and  the  attempt  to  develop  Germany's  African  possessions, 
led  to  an  awakening  in  Germany  of  a  similar,  if  weaker, 
kind.  To  this  awakening  the  building  of  the  German 
navy  contributed  ;  and  though  it  did  not  appeal  to  the 
German  imagination  as  did  the  deeds  of  the  old  navi- 
gators to  that  of  Elizabethan  Englishmen,  it  widened  the 
national  outlook  and  fired  the  people  with  new  imperial 
ambitions.  Hitherto,  moreover,  Germany's  attention  had 
been  confined  almost  solely  to  trade  within  continental 
boundaries  :  henceforth  she  was  to  do  business  actively 
and  enterprisingly  with  all  parts  of  the  world. 


146  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

The  Emperor's  thoughts  on  the  subject  were  expressed 
in  January,  1896,  at  a  banquet  in  the  Berlin  palace  given 
to  a  miscellaneous  company  of  leading  personalities  of 
the  time.  The  occasion  was  the  celebration  of  the 
twenty-fifth  year  of  the  modern  Empire's  foundation. 
He  said  :  "The  German  Empire  becomes  a  world- 
empire.  Everywhere  in  the  farthest  parts  of  the  earth 
live  thousands  of  our  fellow-countrymen.  German 
subjects,  German  knowledge,  German  industry  cross 
the  ocean.  The  value  of  German  goods  on  the  seas 
amounts  to  thousands  of  millions  of  marks.  On  you, 
gentlemen,  devolves  the  serious  duty  of  helping  me  to 
knit  firmly  this  greater  German  Empire  to  the  Empire 
at  home." 

The  expression  "  greater  German  Empire  "  immediately 
reminded  the  Englishman  of  his  own  "  Greater  Britain," 
and  he  concluded  that  the  Emperor  was  secretly  thinking 
of  rivalling  him  in  the  extent  and  value  of  his  colonial 
possessions.  Possibly  he  was,  and  doubtless  he  ardently 
desired  to  see  Germany  owning  large  and  fertile  colonies  ; 
but  it  is  quite  as  probable  he  was  thinking  of  his  economic 
Weltpolitik,  and  knew  as  well  then  as  he  does  now  that  it 
must  be  left  to  time  and  the  hour  to  show  whether  they 
fall  to  her  or  not. 

In  the  same  order  of  ideas  may  be  placed,  though  it  is 
anticipating  somewhat,  the  Emperor's  utterances  at  Aix 
in  1902  and  three  years  later  at  Bremen.  At  Aix,  after 
describing  the  failure  of  Charlemagne's  successors  to 
reconcile  the. duties  of  a  Holy  Roman  Emperor  with  those 
of  a  German  King,  he  continued  :  "  Now  another  Empire 
has  arisen.  The  German  people  has  once  more  an 
Emperor  of  its  own  choice,  with  the  sword  on  the  field 
of  battle  has  the  crown  been  won,  and  the  imperial  flag 
flutters  high  in  the  breeze.  But  the  tasks  of  the  new 
Empire  are  different  :  confined  within  its  borders  it  has 
to  steel  itself  anew  for  the  work  it  has  to  do,  and  which 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  147 

it  could  not  achieve  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  have  to  live 
so  that  the  Empire,  still  young,  becomes  from  year  to 
year  stronger  in  itself,  while  confidence  in  it  strengthens 
on  all  sides.  The  powerful  German  army  guarantees  the 
peace  of  Europe.  In  accord  with  the  German  character 
we  confine  ourselves  externally  in  order  to  be  unconfined 
internally.  Far  stretches  our  speech  over  the  ocean,  far 
the  flight  of  our  science  and  exploration  ;  no  work  in  the 
domain  of  new  discovery,  no  scientific  idea  but  is  first 
tested  by  us  and  then  adopted  by  other  nations.  This  is 
the  world-rule  the  German  spirit  strives  for."  At  Bremen 
he  said  :  "  The  world-empire  I  dream  of  is  a  new  German 
Empire  which  shall  enjoy  on  all  hands  the  most  absolute 
confidence  as  a  quiet,  peaceable,  honest  neighbour — not 
founded  by  conquest  with  the  sword,  but  on  the  mutual 
confidence  of  nations  aiming  at  the  same  end." 

The  Emperor's  world-policy  was  referred  to  more  than 
once  about  this  time  by  Chancellor  Prince  Biilow  in  the 
Reichstag.  "  It  is,"  he  said  on  one  occasion,  "  Germany's 
intention  and  duty  to  protect  the  great  and  ever-growing 
oversea  interests  which  she  has  acquired  through  the 
development  of  conditions."  "We  recognize,"  he  con- 
tinued, "that  we  have  no  longer  interests  only  round  our 
own  fireside  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  church 
clock,  but  everywhere  where  German  industry  and  Ger- 
many's commercial  spirit  have  penetrated ;  and  we  must 
foster  these  interests  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  and 
good  sense."  "  Our  world-policy,"  he  said  on  another 
occasion  in  the  same  place,  "  is  not  a  policy  of  inter- 
ference, much  less  a  policy  of  intervention  :  had  it  inter- 
fered in  South  Africa  (he  was  alluding  to  the  Boer  War) 
it  must  have  intervened,  and  intervention  implies  the  use 
of  force."  On  yet  another  occasion  he  explained  that  a 
prudent  world-policy  must  go  hand  in  hand  with  a  sound 
protective  policy  for  home  industry,  and  that  its  basis 
must  be  a  strong  national  home  policy. 


148          WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

There  is  nothing  in  all  this,  even  supposing  Germany's 
interests  at  that  time  were  purposely  exaggerated,  to 
which  the  foreigner  could  reasonably  object.  The 
foreigner  felt  perhaps  slightly  uncomfortable  when  the 
same  statesman,  departing  for  a  moment  from  his  usual 
objective  standpoint,  spoke  of  the  German  "  traversing 
the  world  with  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  a  spade  and 
trowel  in  the  other  "  ;  but  otherwise  no  act  of  Germany's 
world-policy  need  have  inspired  alarm,  or  need  inspire 
alarm  at  the  present  time,  in  sensible  foreign  minds.  The 
rapidity  of  its  action  probably  helped  to  excite  a  feeling 
that  it  could  not  be  altogether  honest  or  above-board  ; 
but  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  new  Empire  had 
much  leeway  to  make  up  in  the  race  with  other  nations, 
and  that  quick  development  was  rendered  necessary 
by  her  commercial  treaties,  by  her  protective  system,  by 
the  unexpected  growth  of  industry  and  trade,  by  the  con- 
tinuous increase  of  population,  the  development  of  the 
mercantile  marine,  and  the  growing  consciousness  of 
national  strength. 

And  if  there  is  nothing  in  Germany's  development  of 
her  world-policy  to  which  the  foreigner  can  reasonably 
object,  there  is  much  in  it  at  which  he  can  reasonably 
rejoice.  Competition  is  good  for  him,  for  it  puts  him  on 
his  mettle.  A  large  and  prosperous  German  population 
extends  his  markets  and  means  more  business  and  more 
profit.  The  minds  of  both  Germans  and  the  foreigner 
become  broader,  more  mutually  sympathetic  and  appre- 
ciative. The  elder  Pitt  warned  his  fellow-countrymen 
against  letting  France  become  a  maritime,  a  commercial, 
or  a  colonial  power.  She  has  become  all  three,  and  what 
injury  has  occurred  therefrom  to  England  or  any  other 
nation  ? 

Germany's  colonial  development  dates  from  about  the 
year  1884,  the  period  of  the  "  scramble  for  Africa."  The 
first  step  to  acquiring  German  colonies  for  the  Empire 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  149 

was  taken  in  1883,  when  a  merchant  of  Bremen,  Edouard 
Luderitz,  made  an  agreement  with  the  Hottentots  by 
which  the  bay  of  Angra  Pequena  in  South-West  Africa, 
with  an  area  of  fifty  thousand  square  kilometres,  was 
ceded  to  him.  Luderitz  applied  to  Bismarck  for  imperial 
protection.  Bismarck  inquired  of  England  whether  she 
claimed  rights  of  sovereignty  over  the  bay.  Lord 
Granville  replied  in  the  negative,  but  added  that  he  did 
not  consider  the  seizure  of  possession  by  another  Power 
allowable.  Indignant  at  what  he  called  a  "monstrous 
claim  "  on  all  the  land  in  the  world  which  was  without 
a  master,  Bismarck  telegraphed  to  the  German  Consul  at 
the  Cape  to  "  declare  officially  to  the  British  Government 
that  Herr  Luderitz  and  his  acquisitions  are  under  the 
protection  of  the  Empire." 

The  Bremen  pioneer  was  fated  to  gain  no  advantage 
from  his  enterprise,  as  he  was  drowned  in  the  Orange 
River  in  1886.  His  example  as  a  colonist,  however,  was 
followed  by  three  Hanseatic  merchants,  Woermann, 
Jansen,  and  Thormealen,  of  Hamburg,  who  acquired 
land  in  Togo,  a  small  kingdom  to  the  east  of  the  British 
Gold  Coast,  and  in  the  Cameroons,  a  large  tract  in  the 
bend  of  the  Gulf  of  Guinea,  extending  to  Lake  Chad, 
and  applied  for  German  imperial  protection.  Bismarck 
sent  Consul-General  Nachtigall  with  the  gunboat  Moewe 
in  1884  to  hoist  the  German  flag  at  various  ports.  Five 
days  after  this  had  been  done  the  English  gunboat  Flirt 
arrived,  but  was  thus  too  late  to  obtain  Togoland  and  the 
Cameroons  for  England. 

Dr.  Carl  Peters,  the  German  Cecil  Rhodes,  now  arrived 
at  Zanzibar,  and  on  obtaining  concessions  from  the 
Sultan  founded  the  German  East  Africa  Company,  with 
a  charter  from  his  Government.  German  hopes  of  great 
colonial  expansion  began  to  run  high,  but  they  were 
dashed  by  the  Anglo-German  agreement  of  June,  1890, 
delimiting  the  spheres  of  England,  Germany,  and  the 


150          WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

Sultan  of  Zanzibar,  and  stipulating  that  Germany  should 
receive  Heligoland  from  England  in  return  for  German 
recognition  of  English  suzerainty  in  Zanzibar  and  the 
possession  of  Uganda,  which  had  recently  been  taken  for 
Germany  by  Dr.  Peters.  At  that  time  Germans  thought 
very  little  of  Heligoland,  but  there  was  then  no  Anglo- 
German  tension,  and  no  apprehension  of  an  English 
descent  on  the  German  coast. 

The  lease  for  ninety-nine  years  of  Kiautschau,  a  small 
area  of  about  four  hundred  square  miles  on  the  coast  of 
China,  was  obtained  from  the  Chinese  in  connexion 
with  the  murder  of  two  German  missionaries  in  1897  in 
the  Shantung  Province,  of  which  Kiautschau  forms  a 
part.  Herr  von  Biilow,  then  only  Foreign  Secretary, 
referred  to  the  transaction  in  the  Reichstag  in  words  that 
may  be  quoted,  as  they  describe  German  foreign  policy  in 
the  Far  East.  "  Our  cruiser  fleet,"  he  said,  "  was  sent 
to  Kiautschau  Bay  to  exact  reparation  for  the  murder  of 
German  Catholic  missionaries  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
obtain  greater  security  for  the  future  against  a  repetition 
of  such  occurrences.  The  Government,"  he  continued, 
"  has  nothing  but  benevolent  and  friendly  designs  regard- 
ing China,  and  has  no  wish  either  to  offend  or  provoke 
her.  We  are  ready  in  East  Asia  to  recognize  the  interests 
of  other  Great  Powers  in  the  certain  confidence  that  our 
own  interests  will  be  duly  respected  by  them.  In  one 
word — we  desire  to  put  no  one  in  the  shade,  but  we  too 
demand  our  place  in  the  sun.  In  East  Asia,  as  in  the 
West  Indies,  we  shall  endeavour,  in  accordance  with  the 
traditions  of  German  policy,  without  unnecessary  rigour, 
but  also  without  weakness,  to  guard  our  rights  and  our 
interests."  In  mentioning  the  West  Indies  the  Foreign 
Secretary  was  alluding  to  a  quarrel  Germany  had  at  this 
time  with  the  negro  republic  of  Haiti,  owing  to  the 
arrest  and  imprisonment  of  a  German  subject  in  that 
island.  Kiautschau  is  administratively  under  the  German 
Admiralty. 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  151 

The  Caroline,  Marianne,  and  Palau  Islands,  including 
the  Marschall  Islands  and  the  islands  of  the  Bismarck 
archipelago,  were  bought  from  Spain  this  year  for  twenty- 
five  million  pesetas,  or  about  one  million  sterling.  The 
islands  are  valuable  in  German  eyes,  not  only  for  their 
fertility  and  capacity  for  plantation  development,  but  as 
affording  good  harbourage  and  coaling  stations  on  the 
sea-road  to  China,  Japan,  and  Central  America.  By  the 
agreement  with  England  and  America,  which  in  this  year 
also  put  an  end  to  the  thorny  question  of  Samoan 
administration,  Germany  acquired  the  Samoan  islands 
of  Upolu  and  Sawaii  in  the  South  Sea. 

The  ten  years  we  are  now  concerned  with  were  perhaps 
the  most  strenuous  and  picturesque  of  the  Emperor's  life 
hitherto.  He  was  now  his  own  Chancellor,  though  that 
post  was  nominally  occupied  by  General  von  Caprivi 
and  Prince  Chlodwig  Hohenlohe  successively.  He  was 
Chancellor,  too,  knowing  that  not  a  hundred  miles  off 
the  old  pilot  of  the  ship  of  State  was  watching,  keenly 
and  not  too  benevolently,  his  every  act  and  word.  He  was 
conscious  that  the  eyes  of  the  world  were  fixed  on  him, 
and  that  every  other  Government  was  waiting  with 
interest  and  curiosity  to  learn  what  sort  of  rival  in  state- 
craft and  diplomacy  it  would  henceforward  have  to. 
reckon  with.  Naturally  many  plans  coursed  through  his 
restlessly  active  brain,  but  there  were  always,  one  may 
imagine,  two  compelling  and  ever-present  thoughts  at  the 
back  of  them.  One  of  these  was  a  determination  to 
promote  the  moral  and  material  prosperity  of  his  people 
so  as  to  make  them  a  model  and  thoroughly  modern 
commonwealth  ;  the  other,  the  resolve  that  as  Emperor 
he  would  not  allow  Germany  to  be  overlooked,  to  be 
treated  as  a  quantite  negligeable,  in  the  discussion  or 
decision  of  international  affairs. 

The  Chancellorship  of  General  von  Caprivi,  who  had 
been  successively  Minister  of  War  and  Marine,  lasted 


152  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

from  March,  1890,  to  October,  1894.  He  may  have  been 
a  good  commanding  general,  but  he  has  left  no  reputation 
either  as  a  man  of  marked  character  or  as  a  statesman  of 
exceptional  ability.  Nor  was  either  character  or  ability 
much  needed.  He  was,  as  every  one  knew,  a  man  of 
immensely  inferior  ability  to  his  great  predecessor,  but 
every  one  knew  also  that  the  Emperor  intended  to  be  his 
own  Chancellor,  pursue  his  own  policy,  and  take  responsi- 
bility for  it.  Taking  responsibility  is,  naturally,  easier  for 
a  Hohenzollern  monarch  than  for  most  men,  since  he  is 
responsible  to  no  one  but  himself.  With  the  appoint- 
ment of  Caprivi  the  Emperor's  "  personal  regiment  "  may 
be  said  to  have  begun. 

During  General  von  Caprivi's  term  of  office  some 
measures  of  importance  have  to  be  noted,  among  them 
the  Quinquennat,  which  replaced  Bismarck's  Septennat 
and  fixed  the  military  budget  for  five  years  instead  of 
seven  ;  the  reduction  of  the  period  of  conscription  for 
the  infantry  from  three  years  to  two ;  and  the  decision 
not  to  renew  Bismarck's  reinsurance  treaty  with  Russia. 

The  chief  event,  however,  with  which  Chancellor 
Caprivi's  name  is  usually  associated,  is  the  conclusion  of 
commercial  treaties  between  Germany  and  most  other 
continental  countries.  Other  countries  had  followed 
Germany's  example  and  adopted  a  protective  system,  and 
with  a  view  to  the  avoidance  of  tariff  wars,  Caprivi, 
strongly  supported,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  by  an 
Emperor  who  had  just  declared  that  "  the  world  at  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century  stands  under  the  star  of 
commerce,  which  breaks  down  the  barriers  between 
nations,"  began  a  series  of  commercial  treaty  negotia- 
tions. 

The  first  agreements  were  made  with  Germany's  allies 
in  the  Triplice,  Austria  and  Italy.  Treaties  with  Switzer- 
land and  Belgium,  Servia  and  Rumania,  followed.  Russia 
held  aloof  for  a  time,  but  as  a  great  grain-exporting 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  153 

country  she  too  found  it  advisable  to  come  to  terms. 
With  France  there  was  no  need  of  an  agreement,  since 
she  was  bound  by  the  Treaty  of  Frankfurt,  concluded 
after  the  war  of  1870,  to  grant  Germany  her  minimum 
duties.  One  of  the  regrettable  results  of  the  Empire's 
new  commercial  policy  was  an  antagonism  between 
agriculture  and  industry  which  now  declared  itself  and 
has  remained  active  to  the  present  day.  The  political 
cause  of  Caprivi's  fall  from  power,  if  power  it  can  be 
called,  was  the  twofold  hostility  of  the  Conservative  and 
Liberal  parties  in  Parliament,  that  of  the  Conservatives 
being  due  to  the  injury  supposed  to  be  done  to  landlord 
interests  by  the  commercial  treaties,  and  that  of  the 
Liberals  by  an  Education  Bill,  which,  it  was  alleged, 
would  hand  the  Prussian  school  system  completely  over 
to  the  Church.  Perhaps  the  main  cause,  however,  was 
the  general  unpopularity  he  incurred  by  attacking, 
officially  and  through  the  press,  his  predecessor,  Bismarck, 
the  idol  of  the  people. 

It  was  in  the  Chancellorship  of  Prince  Hohenlohe, 
which  ended  in  1900,  that  the  most  memorable  events 
of  this  remarkable  decade  occurred ;  but,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  and  as  the  Emperor  himself  must  have 
expected,  the  Prince,  now  a  man  of  seventy -five,  played 
a  very  secondary  part  with  regard  to  them.  The  Prince 
was  what  the  Germans  call  a  "  house-friend "  of  the 
Hohenzollern  family  and  related  to  it.  He  was  useful, 
his  contemporaries  say,  as  a  brake  on  the  impetuous 
temper  of  his  imperial  master,  though  he  did  not,  we 
may  be  sure,  turn  him  from  any  of  the  main  designs  he 
had  at  heart.  Prince  Hohenlohe,  in  character,  was 
good-nature  and  amiability  personified.  He  was  be- 
loved by  all  classes  and  parties,  and  no  foreigner  can 
read  his  Memoirs  without  a  feeling  of  friendliness  for  a 
personality  so  moderate  and  calm  and  simple.  A  note 
he  makes  in  one  of  his  diaries  amusingly  illustrates  the 


154  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

simple  side  of  his  character.  He  is  dining  with  the 
Emperor,  when  the  Emperor,  catching  the  Prince's  eye, 
which  we  may  be  sure  was  on  the  alert  to  gather  up  any 
of  the  royal  beams  that  might  come  his  way,  raises  his 
glass  in  sign  of  amity.  "  I  felt  so  overcome,"  notes  the 
Prince,  "that  I  almost  spilt  the  champagne." 

The  famous  "  Kruger  telegram "  episode  occurred 
during  the  Chancellorship  of  Prince  Hohenlohe. 

For  many  years  the  sending  of  the  telegram  was  cited 
as  a  convincing  proof  of  the  Emperor's  "impulsive" 
character,  and  it  was  not  until  1909  that  the  truth  of  the 
matter  was  stated  by  Chancellor  von  Bulow  in  the 
Reichstag.  In  March  of  that  year  he  said  :  "  It  has  been 
asked,  was  this  telegram  an  act  of  personal  initiative  or 
an  act  of  State  ?  In  this  regard  let  me  refer  you  to  your 
own  proceedings.  You  will  remember  that  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  telegram  was  never  repudiated  by  the 
directors  of  our  political  business  at  the  time.  The 
telegram  was  an  act  of  State,  the  result  of  official 
consultations ;  it  was  in  nowise  an  act  of  personal 
initiative  on  the  part  of  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser. 
Whoever  asserts  that  it  was  is  ignorant  of  what  preceded 
it  and  does  his  Majesty  completely  wrong." 

The  Emperor's  telegram  to  President  Kruger,  des- 
patched on  January  3,  1896,  ran  as  follows  : — 

"  I  congratulate  you  most  sincerely  on  having  succeeded  with  your 
people,  and  without  calling  on  the  help  of  foreign  Powers,  by 
opposing  your  own  force  to  an  armed  band  which  broke  into  your 
country  to  disturb  the  peace,  in  restoring  quiet  and  in  maintaining 
the  independence  of  your  country  against  external  attack." 

The  echoes  of  this  historic  message  were  heard  imme- 
diately in  every  country,  but  naturally  nowhere  more 
loudly  than  in  England  ;  and  the  reverberation  of  them 
is  audible  to  the  present  day.  In  Germany,  however,  for 
a  day  or  two,  the  telegram  seems  to  have  surprised  no 
one,  was  indeed  spoken  of  with  approval  by  deputies  in 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  155 

the  Reichstag,  and  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  any 
one  in  the  light  of  a  serious  diplomatic  mistake.  This 
state  of  feeling  did  not  last  long,  and  when  the  English 
newspapers  arrived  an  entirely  new  light  was  thrown  on 
the  matter.  The  Morning  Post  concluded  an  article  with 
the  words  :  "  It  is  not  easy  to  speak  calmly  of  the  Kaiser's 
telegram.  The  English  people  will  not  forget  it,  and  in 
future  will  always  think  of  it  when  considering  its  foreign 
policy."  The  British  Government's  comment  on  the 
telegram  was  to  put  a  flying  squadron  in  commission  and 
issue  an  official  statement  urbi  et  orbi,  calling  attention 
to  the  Convention  made  with  President  Kruger  in 
London  in  1884,  reserving  the  supervision  of  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  Transvaal  to  the  British  Government. 

The  Emperor  himself  appears  to  have  recognized  that 
he  and  his  advisers  had  made  a  serious  blunder,  and  that 
a  gesture  which,  it  is  highly  probable,  was  partly 
prompted  by  the  chivalrous  side  of  his  character,  was 
certain  to  be  gravely  misunderstood.  At  any  rate  his 
policy,  or  that  of  his  Government,  changed,  and  instead 
of  following  up  his  encouraging  words  with  mediation 
or  intervention,  he  assumed  an  attitude  of  neutrality 
towards  the  war  which  soon  after  began.  Subsequently, 
in  the  Reichstag,  Chancellor  von  Biilow  described  the 
course  the  German  Government  pursued  immediately 
before  and  during  the  war ;  and  there  seems  no  reason 
to  discredit  his  account.  The  speech  was  made  apropos 
of  the  projected  visit  of  President  Kruger  to  Berlin,  when 
on  his  tour  of  despair  to  the  capitals  of  Europe  while  the 
war  was  still  in  progress.  He  was  cheered  by  boulevard 
crowds  in  Paris,  itself  a  thing  of  no  great  significance, 
and  was  received  at  the  Elysee  and  by  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  M.  Delcasse.  The  visitor  was  very 
reserved  on  both  occasions,  and  confined  himself  to 
sounding  his  hosts  as  to  whether  or  not  he  could  reckon 
on  their  good  offices. 


156  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

From  Paris  he  started  for  Berlin,  where  he  had 
engaged  a  large  and  expensive  first-floor  suite  of  rooms 
in  a  fashionable  hotel.  At  Cologne,  however,  shortly 
after  entering  Germany,  a  telegram  from  Potsdam  awaited 
him,  announcing  the  Emperor's  refusal  to  grant  him 
audience.  The  imperial  telegram  consisted  of  a  few 
words  to  the  effect  that  the  Emperor  was  "  not  in  a 
position  "  to  receive  him.  Nor  in  truth  was  he.  An 
audience  at  that  moment  would  have  meant  war 
between  Germany  and  England. 

As  to  German  policy  with  regard  to  the  Boer  War, 
Prince  Biilow  explained  that  the  German  Government 
deplored  the  war  not  only  because  it  was  between  two 
Christian  and  white  races,  that  were,  moreover,  of  the 
same  Germanic  stock,  but  also  because  it  drew  within 
the  evil  circle  of  its  consequences  important  German 
economic  and  political  interests.  He  went  on  to 
describe  their  nature,  enumerating  under  the  one  head 
the  thousands  of  German  settlers  in  South  Africa,  the 
industrial  establishments  and  banks  they  had  founded 
there,  the  busy  trade  and  the  millions  sterling  of  invested 
capital  ;  while,  as  regarded  the  other  head,  the  Govern- 
ment had  to  take  care  that  the  war  exercised  no  injurious 
influence  on  German  territory  in  that  region. 

The  Government,  the  Chancellor  claimed,  had  done 
everything  consistent  with  neutrality  and  the  conservation 
of  German  interests  to  hinder  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 
It  had  "loyally"  warned  the  two  Dutch  republics  of  the 
disposition  in  Europe,  and  left  them  in  no  doubt  as  to 
the  attitude  Germany  would  adopt  if  war  should  come. 
These  communications  were  not  made  directly,  but 
through  the  Hague  authorities  and  the  Consul-General 
of  the  Netherlands  in  Pretoria.  At  that  time  the 
United  States  Government  had  come  forward  with  a 
proposal  for  a  submission  of  the  quarrel  to  its  arbitration, 
but  the  proposal  had  been  rejected  by  President  Kruger. 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  157 

A  little  later  the  President  changed  his  mind,  but  it  was 
then  too  late  and  war  was  declared.  Once  the  die  was 
cast,  Germany  could  only  with  propriety  have  interfered, 
provided  she  had  reason  to  believe  her  mediation  would 
be  accepted  by  both  parties :  otherwise  her  conduct 
would  not  be  mediation,  but  be  regarded,  in  accordance 
with  diplomatic  usage,  as  intervention  with  coercive 
measures  in  the  background.  For  such  a  policy 
Germany  had  no  disposition,  for  it  meant  running  the 
risk  of  a  diplomatic  defeat  on  the  one  hand  and  of  an 
armed  conflict  with  England  on  the  other. 

As  regards  the  visit  of  the  President  to  Berlin  and  the 
Emperor's  refusal  to  receive  him,  the  Chancellor  asked 
would  a  reception  have  done  any  good  either  to  the 
President  or  to  Germany,  and  he  answered  his  own 
question  with  an  emphatic  negative.  To  the  President 
an  audience  would  have  been  of  no  more  use  than  the 
ovations  and  demonstrations  he  was  greeted  with  in 
Paris.  To  Germany  a  reception  would  have  meant  a 
shifting  of  international  relations  to  the  disadvantage  of 
the  country  :  in  other  words,  would  have  meant  the 
risk,  almost  the  certainty,  of  war.  "  Wars,"  said  the 
Chancellor  in  this  connexion,  "  are  much  more  easily 
unchained  through  elementary  popular  passions,  through 
the  passionate  excitation  of  public  opinion,  than  in  the 
old  days  through  the  ambitions  of  monarchs  or  through 
the  jealousies  of  Ministers."  And  he  concluded  :  "  With 
regard  to  England  we  stand  entirely  independent  of  her  : 
we  are  not  a  hair's-breadth  more  dependent  on  England 
than  England  is  on  us.  But  we  are  ready  on  the  basis 
of  mutual  consideration  and  complete  equality — about 
this  obvious  preliminary  condition  for  a  proper  relation 
between  two  Great  Powers  we  have  never  left  any 
Power  in  doubt :  I  say,  we  are  ready  on  this  basis  to  live 
with  England  in  peace,  friendship,  and  harmony.  To 
play  the  Don  Quixote  and  to  lay  the  lance  in  rest  and 


158  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

attack  wherever  in  the  world  English  windmills  are  to  be 
found,  for  that  we  are  not  called  upon." 

But  just  then  there  was  little  prospect  of  "peace, 
friendship,  and  harmony "  with  England.  The  world 
remembers,  and  unfortunately  the  English  people  do  not 
forget,  that  they  had  nowhere  more  bitter  and  offensive 
critics  than  in  Germany.  One  refined  method  of 
opprobrium  was  the  unprohibited  sale  in  the  main 
streets  of  Berlin  of  spittoons  bearing  the  countenance  of 
the  English  Colonial  Minister,  Mr.  Chamberlain.  A  war 
with  England  would  at  that  moment  have  been  highly 
popular  in  Germany,  but  as  the  Chancellor  wisely 
reminded  the  Parliament,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  statesman 
to  protect  international  relations  from  disturbance  by 
intrigue  or  by  popular  demonstration. 

Finally  the  Chancellor  dealt  with  a  report  widely 
current  in  England  and  Germany  at  the  time,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Emperor's  refusal  to  receive  President 
Kruger  was  due  to  the  influence  of  his  uncle,  King 
Edward.  The  Chancellor  emphatically  denied  that  any 
pressure  of  the  kind  from  the  English  Court,  or  from  any 
other  source,  had  been  employed,  and  ended  by  saying : 
"  To  suppose  that  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser  could  allow 
himself  to  be  influenced  by  family  relations  shows  little 
understanding  of  his  character,  or  of  his  love  of  country. 
For  his  Majesty  solely  the  national  standpoint  is  decisive, 
and  if  it  were  otherwise,  and  family  relations  or  dynastic 
considerations  determined  our  foreign  policy,  I  would 
not  remain  Minister  a  day  longer."  A  precisely  similar 
and  unfounded  charge,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  made 
against  King  Edward  VII  in  1902,  to  the  effect  that  it 
was  Court  influence,  not  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the 
Cabinet,  that  was  the  efficient  cause  of  the  co-operation 
of  the  British  with  the  German  fleet  in  the  demonstration 
off  the  coast  of  Venezuela. 

A  recent  writer,  Dr.  Adolf  Stein,  gives  an  account  of 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  159 

the  sending  of  the  famous  telegram  which  corroborates 
that  of  Prince  von  Biilow.  The  telegram,  according  to 
this  version,  was  a  well-considered  answer  to  a  question 
from  the  Transvaal  Government  put  to  the  German 
Government  a  month  before  the  Raid  occurred,  and 
when  the  Transvaal  Government  got  the  first  inkling  of 
the  preparations  being  made  for  it.  President  Kruger 
asked  what  attitude  Germany  would  adopt  in  case  of  a 
war  between  England  and  the  Boer  republics.  The 
answer  given  to  the  person  who  made  the  inquiry  on 
behalf  of  the  Transvaal  Government  was  that  President 
Kruger  might  rest  assured  of  Germany's  "  diplomatic 
support  in  so  far  as  it  was  also  Germany's  interest  that 
the  independence  of  the  Boer  States  should  be  main- 
tained, but  that  for  anything  beyond  this  he  should  not 
reckon  on  Germany's  assistance  or  that  of  any  Great 
Power."  This  answer,  Dr.  Stein  says,  was  in  course  of 
transmission  by  the  post  when  the  Raid  occurred. 

The  Raid  was  made  on  January  ist.  The  event  was 
at  once  telegraphed  to  Berlin,  where  Prince  Hohenlohe 
was  Chancellor,  with  Freiherr  Marschall  von  Bieberstein, 
afterwards  German  Ambassador  in  Constantinople  and 
London,  as  his  Foreign  Secretary.  According  to 
Dr.  Stein,  they  drew  up  a  telegram  to  President  Kruger, 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd  laid  it  before  the  Emperor, 
who  had  come  early  from  Potsdam  for  consultation  on 
the  matter.  The  Chancellor,  it  should  be  mentioned, 
had  been  at  Potsdam  the  day  previous,  but  at  that  time 
the  news  of  the  Raid  had  not  reached  the  Emperor. 
The  Emperor,  Chancellor,  and  Foreign  Secretary  now 
decided  that  a  telegram  congratulating  President  Kruger 
for  having  repulsed  the  Raid  "  without  foreign  aid  "  was 
the  best  non-committal  form  to  adopt.  The  Emperor, 
Dr.  Stein  continues,  raised  some  objections,  but  was 
over-persuaded  by  Prince  Hohenlohe  and  von  Bieber- 
stein. 


160          WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

As  confirming  this  version,  a  little  note  in  Lord 
Goschen's  Biography  may  be  recalled,  in  which  Lord 
Goschen  confides  to  a  friend  a  few  weeks  before  the 
Raid  that  the  "Germans  were  taking  the  Boers  under 
their  wing,  as  the  Americans  had  done  with  the 
Venezuelans." 

Enough  perhaps  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  sending 
of  the  telegram  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Emperor's 
"  impulsive "  character,  and  it  will  only  be  fair  to  him 
to  let  the  notion  that  it  had  drop  finally  out  of  con- 
temporary history.  As  an  act  of  State  it  was  in  con- 
sonance with  German  policy  at  the  time.  That  policy, 
if  it  did  not  look  to  acquiring  possession  of  the  Transvaal, 
may  very  well  have  looked  to  enlisting  the  sympathies 
and  friendship  of  the  Dutch  in  South  Africa,  and  finding 
in  them  and  their  country  a  field  for  German  enterprise 
and  a  market  for  German  goods  ;  and  there  was  therefore 
nothing  impulsive,  however  mistaken  the  act  may  have 
been  as  a  matter  of  foreign  policy,  in  the  German 
Government's  congratulating  President  Kruger  on  suc- 
cessful resistance  to  a  private  raid. 

We  have  suggested  that  the  telegram  was  partly  due 
to  a  certain  element  of  chivalry  in  the  Emperor's  char- 
acter. The  Emperor  was  well  acquainted  with  other 
forms  of  government  and  other  social  systems  besides 
his  own,  and  though  a  Hohenzollern  could  put  himself 
in  the  position  of  the  chief  of  the  little  Boer  republic, 
threatened  as  he  was  with  annihilation  by  a  mighty  and 
powerful  opponent.  Moreover,  there  is  always  to  be 
remembered  the  sympathy  of  view,  particularly  of 
religious  view,  that  existed  in  the  two  men  as  regarded 
their  attitude  and  duties  to  their  respective  "  folk."  The 
President  had  appealed  to  the  Emperor  for  help.  The 
Emperor  had  had  to  refuse  it,  but  had  wired  that  he 
would  do  all  he  could  "  diplomatically."  He  knew 
that  this  was  but  a  poor  sort  of  assistance,  but  it  was 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  161 

something,  and  when  the  Raid  occurred  he  gave  the 
diplomatic  assistance  he  had  promised  by  sending  a 
telegram  of  congratulation.  In  any  case — tempi  passati. 
Foreign  policy  is  not  concerned  with  sympathies  or 
antipathies,  and  the  whole  episode  should  be  ignored,  or, 
better  still,  forgotten. 

The  Kruger  telegram,  it  turned  out,  was  to  usher  in  a 
long  period  of  tension  between  two  countries  of  the  same 
race,  singularly  alike  in  their  ideals  of  whatever  is  sound 
and  praiseworthy  in  Christian  civilization,  and  almost 
equally  mutual  admirers  of  the  fundamental  features  of 
each  other's  national  character.  Unfortunately,  along 
with  these  fundamental  features  of  the  English  and 
German  national  characters,  the  love  of  money,  the  auri 
sacra  fames,  has  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  in  the  race  of 
nations  for  wealth  and  power  the  fundamental  qualities 
are  apt,  for  a  time,  to  be  overborne  and  cease  to  act. 
The  rise  of  the  modern  German  Empire  to  power  and 
prosperity,  and  the  new  world-situation  thus  created, 
largely  by  the  Emperor,  is  at  the  bottom  of  Anglo- 
German  tension.  As  a  main  contributory  cause  of  both 
the  power  and  the  prosperity,  was  the  creation  of  the 
German  navy  at  the  period  of  which  we  write. 

The  following  is  a  parable  which  he  who  runs  may 
read  : — 

In  a  certain  town,  with  a  large  and  heterogeneous 
population,  there  was  once  a  "  monster  "  shop.  The  firm 
(there  were  three  partners)  had  been  established  for 
hundreds  of  years,  had  thrown  out  several  branches,  and 
by  hard  work,  enterprise,  and  honesty  had  acquired  a 
leading  position  in  the  trade  of  the  town  :  so  much  so, 
indeed,  that  as  time  went  on  it  had  also  come  to  do  the 
carriage  and  delivery  of  goods  for  most  of  the  smaller 
shops,  though  some  of  these  were  large  houses  themselves 
and  the  majority  of  them  in  a  fair  way  of  business.  The 
smaller  shops  were  naturally  a  little  jealous  of  the 


1 62  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

"  monster,"  and  it  was  the  dream  of  every  owner  of  them 
to  enlarge  his  premises  and  become  the  proprietor  of  an 
equally  great  emporium  as  the  "monster."  One  day, 
therefore,  a  little  cluster  of  shops,  at  some  distance  from 
the  "  monster,"  suddenly  resolved  to  form  a  combination, 
and  after  settling  a  dispute  with  a  neighbour  in  considera- 
tion of  a  sum  of  money  and  a  fruitful  tract  of  land,  issued 
the  prospectus  of  the  new  company  and  began  to  do 
business  on  modern  lines. 

Almost  from  the  very  beginning  the  new  company  was 
a  great  success  :  its  situation  was  central ;  the  company 
inspired  its  members  with  enterprise  and  spirit  ;  it  was 
industrious,  energetic,  and  splendidly  organized  ;  and  at 
last  it  began  to  cut  into  the  trade  of  the  old-established 
"monster."  Competition  might  have  gone  on  in  the 
ordinary  way  had  not  the  new  company  made  a 
departure  in  business  methods  that  gradually  roused 
special  uneasiness  among  the  members  of  the  "  monster  " 
firm.  Hitherto  the  latter  had  its  delivery  vans  travel  all 
over  the  town,  and  so  well  was  this  part  of  its  system 
carried  on  that  the  firm  acquired  all  but  a  monopoly  of 
carrying  and  delivery.  The  new  company,  however,  now 
began  to  do  a  little  in  the  same  line,  whereupon  the 
"  monster  "  took  to  building  a  superior  type  of  van  much 
more  powerful  and  imposing,  if  also  much  more  expen- 
sive, than  the  one  previously  in  use.  The  new  company 
naturally  followed  suit,  and  in  a  surprisingly  short  time 
had  built,  or  had  under  construction,  several  vans  of  an 
exactly  similar  kind.  The  "  monster "  saw  the  new 
departure  of  their  rivals  at  first  with  curiosity,  then  with 
contempt,  then  with  anxiety,  and  finally  with  suspicion 
and  alarm.  At  the  time  of  writing  the  alarm  appears  to 
have  abated,  but  a  good  deal  of  the  suspicion  remains. 
The  town  is  the  world,  the  "  monster  "  Great  Britain,  and 
the  rival  company  the  modern  German  Empire. 

It  would  require  the  Emperor  himself  properly  to  tell 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  163 

the  story  of  his  creation  of  the  modern  German  navy,  and 
if  he  has  a  right  to  call  any  part  of  his  people's  property 
his  own,  he  is  justified  in  speaking,  as  he  invariably  does, 
of  "  my  navy."  As  Prince  William,  his  interest  in  the 
subject  may  have  been  originally  due,  as  has  been  seen, 
to  his  partly  English  parentage,  his  frequent  visits  to 
England,  and  the  fact  that  his  physical  disability 
threatened  to  prevent  him  taking  an  active  part  in  the 
more  strenuous  duties  of  the  soldier.  It  is  very  probable 
that  it  was  in  the  region  that  cradled  the  British  navy 
the  idea  of  a  great  German  navy  was  conceived  by  him. 
We  have  seen  that  the  Emperor,  as  Prince  William, 
showed  his  enthusiasm  in  the  matter  by  delivering 
lectures  on  it  in  military  circles,  though  it  was  not  his 
lot,  but  that  of  his  brother  Henry,  to  be  assigned  the 
navy  as  a  profession.  In  his  Order  to  the  Navy  on 
ascending  the  throne,  he  spoke  of  the  "  lively  and  warm 
interest "  that  bound  him  to  the  navy,  shortly  afterwards 
issued  directions  for  a  new  marine  uniform  on  the 
English  model,  and  caused  the  introduction  into  the 
Lutheran  Church  service  of  a  special  prayer  for  the  arm. 
He  gave  a  parliamentary  soiree  at  the  New  Palace  in 
Potsdam,  and  before  allowing  his  Conservative  and 
National  Liberal  guests  to  sit  down  to  supper,  made 
them  listen  to  a  lecture  which  occupied  two  hours,  giving 
particular  attention,  with  the  aid  of  maps  and  plans,  to 
the  battle  of  the  Yalu  between  the  fleets  of  China  and 
Japan.  He  founded  the  Technical  Shipbuilding  Society, 
and  took,  and  takes,  an  animated  part  in  its  proceedings, 
suggesting  positions  for  the  guns,  the  disposition  of 
armour,  the  dimensions  of  submarines,  and  a  hundred 
other  details.  In  1908  he  delivered  an  after-dinner 
lecture  at  the  "  Villa  Achilleion  "  in  Corfu  on  Nelson  and 
the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  based  on  the  writings  of  Captain 
Mark  Kerr  of  the  Implacable,  at  which  the  situations 
of  the  French,  English,  and  Spanish  fleets  were  sketched 


164  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

by  the  imperial  hand.  To  his  admiration  for  the  writings 
of  Captain  Mahan  his  persistence  in  enlarging  the  fleet 
is  said  largely  to  be  due.  He  is,  of  course,  assisted  by  a 
host  of  able  experts,  among  whom  Admiral  von  Tirpitz 
— the  ablest  German  since  Bismarck,  many  Germans 
say — is  the  most  distinguished  ;  but  as  he  is  his  own 
Foreign  Minister  and  own  Commander-in-Chief,  he 
is,  in  the  fullest  sense,  his  own  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty. 

The  Emperor  closed  one  of  his  naval  lectures  with  an 
anecdote  which  the  papers  reported  next  day  as  being 
received  with  "stormy  amusement."  It  was  about  the 
metacentrum,  the  centre  of  gravity  in  ship  construction. 
The  Emperor  told  of  his  having  asked  an  old  sea 
lieutenant  to  explain  to  him  the  metacentrum.  "  I 
received  the  answer,"  said  the  Emperor,  "  that  he  did 
not  know  very  exactly  himself — it  was  a  secret.  'All 
I  can  say  is/  the  old  seaman  went  on,  'that  if  the 
metacentrum  was  in  the  topmast,  the  ship  would  over- 
turn.' "  The  success  of  a  jest,  one  is  told,  lies  in  the  ear 
of  the  hearer.  Possibly  something  of  the  "  stormy 
amusement "  may  have  been  called  forth  by  the  reflec- 
tion that  the  imperial  metacentrum  had  on  occasion  got 
misplaced. 

In  addition  to  the  natural  and  accidental  pre- 
dispositions of  the  Emperor,  certain  general  considera- 
tions, which  imposed  themselves  irresistibly  on  all  men's 
attention  as  the  century  drew  to  its  close,  impelled  him 
to  more  energetic  action.  A  student  of  the  history  of 
other  countries  as  well  as  his  own,  and  a  watchful 
observer  of  the  tendencies  of  the  time,  he  felt  that  the 
young  Empire  was  incomplete  as  long  as  it  was  without 
a  navy  corresponding  in  size  and  power  to  its  army,  the 
organization  of  which  had  been  completed.  With  its 
army  alone  he  regarded  the  Empire  as  a  colossus,  no 
doubt,  but  a  colossus  standing  on  one  leg,  and  was 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  165 

convinced  that  if  the  Empire  was  to  be  a  success  it 
must  have  a  navy  at  least  able  to  withstand  attack 
by  any  of  his  continental  neighbours  and  potential 
enemies. 

On  ascending  the  throne  the  Emperor  was  naturally 
most  occupied  with  the  internal  situation  of  his  new 
inheritance,  and  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  time  railing  at 
Social  Democracy  and  the  press,  explaining  the  nature 
of  his  Heaven-appointed  kingship,  and  rousing  his  some- 
what lethargic  people  to  a  sense  of  their  power  and 
possibilities  ;  but  he  found  a  moment  in  1891  to  write 
under  a  photograph  he  gave  the  retiring  Postmaster- 
General  Stephan :  "The  world,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  stands  under  the  star  of  commerce ;  commerce 
breaks  down  the  barriers  which  separate  the  peoples  and 
creates  new  relations  between  the  nations."  Then  the 
idea  slumbered  in  his  mind  for  a  few  years,  while  he 
continued  to  make  his  own  people  restless  with  criticism, 
perhaps  deserved,  of  their  sluggishness,  their  pessimism, 
their  party  strife,  and  foreign  peoples  equally  restless 
with  phrases  like  " nemo  me  immune  lacessit"  ;  until  the 
idea  came  suddenly  to  utterance  in  1897,  when,  on  seeing 
the  figure  of  Neptune  on  a  monument  to  the  Emperor 
William,  he  broke  out :  "  The  trident  should  be  in  our 
grip  !  "  From  this  time,  and  for  the  next  few  years,  the 
growth  of  the  navy  may  be  said  to  have  never  long  been 
far  from  his  thoughts.  In  sending  Prince  Henry  to 
Kiautschau  at  the  close  of  1898  he  made  the  remark  that 
"imperial  power  means  sea  power,  and  sea  power  and 
imperial  power  are  dependent  on  each  other."  Nine 
months  afterwards  at  Stettin  he  used  a  phrase  alone 
sufficient  to  keep  his  name  alive  in  history  :  "Our  future 
lies  on  the  water  ! " 

At  Hamburg,  in  1899,  he  laid  emphasis  on  the  changes 
in  the  world  which  justify  a  naval  policy  one  can  see 
now  was  almost  inevitable. 


1 66  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

"  A  strong  German  fleet,"  he  said,  "  is  a  thing  of  which  we  stand 
in  bitter  need."  And  he  continued  :  "  In  Hamburg  especially  one 
can  understand  how  necessary  is  a  powerful  protection  for  German 
interests  abroad.  If  we  look  around  us  we  see  how  greatly  the 
aspect  of  the  world  has  altered  in  recent  years.  Old-world  empires 
pass  away  and  new  ones  begin  to  arise.  Nations  suddenly  appear 
before  the  peoples  and  compete  with  them,  nations  of  whom  a  little 
before  the  ordinary  man  had  been  hardly  aware.  Products  which 
bring  about  radical  changes  in  the  domain  of  international  relations, 
as  well  as  in  the  political  economy  of  the  people,  and  which  in  old 
times  took  hundreds  of  years  to  ripen,  come  to  maturity  in  a  few 
months.  The  result  is  that  the  tasks  of  our  German  Empire  and 
people  have  grown  to  enormous  proportions  and  demand  of  me  and 
my  Government  unusual  and  great  efforts,  which  can  then  only  be 
crowned  with  success  when,  united  and  decided,  without  respect  to 
party,  Germans  stand  behind  us.  Our  people,  moreover,  must 
resolve  to  make  some  sacrifice.  Above  all  they  must  put  aside  their 
endeavour  to  seek  the  excellent  through  the  ever  more-sharply 
contrasted  party  factions.  They  must  cease  to  put  party  above  the 
welfare  of  the  whole.  They  must  put  a  curb  on  their  ancient  and 
inherited  weakness — to  subject  everything  to  the  most  unlicensed 
criticism  ;  and  they  must  stop  at  the  point  where  their  most  vital 
interests  become  concerned.  For  it  is  precisely  these  political  sins 
which  revenge  themselves  so  deeply  on  our  sea  interests  and  our 
fleet.  Had  the  strengthening  of  the  fleet  not  been  refused  me 
during  the  past  eight  years  of  my  Government,  notwithstanding  all 
appeals  and  warnings — and  not  without  contumely  and  abuse  for 
my  person — how  differently  could  we  not  have  promoted  our  growing 
trade  and  our  interests  beyond  the  sea  ! " 

Perhaps  ;  but  perhaps,  too,  it  was  as  well  for  the  peace 
of  the  world  that  Germany  had  no  great  war  fleet  during 
those  eight  years  of  troubled  international  relations,  and 
that  the  gentle  and  adjusting  hand  of  Providence,  not 
the  mailed  fist  of  the  Emperor,  was  guiding  the  destinies 
of  nations. 

Previous  to  the  opening  of  the  reign  a  German  navy 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed.  Yet  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  Germany  also  has  maritime  traditions  of 
no  small  interest,  if  of  no  great  importance,  to  the  world. 
The  Great  Elector,  the  ancestor  of  the  Emperor  who 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  167 

ruled  Brandenburg  from  1640  to  1688,  was  fully  con- 
scious of  the  profit  his  people  might  acquire  by  sea 
commerce,  and  the  little  navy  of  high-sea  frigates  which 
he  built  stood  manfully,  and  often  successfully,  up  to 
the  more  powerful  navies  of  Sweden  and  Spain.  This 
fleet  was  known,  too,  far  away  from  Brandenburg,  for 
the  records  tell  how  the  Pope  and  the  Maltese  Knights 
and  Louis  XIV  willingly  admitted  it  to  their  harbours. 

But  there  was  lacking  what  until  lately  has  always 
hemmed  German  progress — money  ;  and  the  commer- 
cially-minded Dutch,  a  people  themselves  with  many 
German  characteristics,  kept  the  Germans  from  the  sea. 
Then  came  Frederick  the  Great,  who  ruled  from  1740  to 
1786,  and  those  Germans  who  are  fond  of  claiming 
Shakespeare  for  their  own^will  also  tell  you  that  the  plan 
drawn  up  by  Frederick  for  Pitt's  seven  years'  struggle 
with  France — that  plan  so  unfortunately  imitated 
afterwards  by  the  Emperor  in  his  correspondence  with 
Queen  Victoria  during  the  Boer  War — was  the  foun- 
dation-stone of  British  naval  supremacy  !  Frederick,  too, 
saw  the  advantage  of  possessing  a  fleet,  but  he  had 
his  hands  full  with  France  and  Russia,  and  reluctantly 
had  to  decline  the  offer  of  the  French  naval  hero, 
Labourdonnais,  to  build  him  a  battle-fleet.  At  this 
period,  and  in  the  Great  Elector's  time,  Emden  was  the 
Plymouth  of  Prussia.  When  Frederick  died,  there 
followed  that  time  of  which  Germans  themselves  are 
ashamed — the  hole-and-corner  time,  the  time  when  the 
parochial  spirit  was  abroad  and  no  German  burgher 
saw  beyond  the  village  church  and  the  village  pump  ; 
the  Biedermeier  time  (that  comic  figure  of  the  German 
Punch),  the  time  of  genuine  German  philistinism, 
when  the  people  were  lapped  in  an  idyllic  repose  and 
were  content,  as  many  are  to-day,  with  the  smallest  and 
simplest  pleasures. 

This   spirit   continued   until  the   early  quarter   of  the 


1 68  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

nineteenth  century,  when  Professor  Frederick  List  roused 
the  attention  of  his  countrymen,  and  notably  that  of 
Bismarck,  to  the  necessity  of  an  independent  national 
existence  and  a  national  economic  policy.  In  1836  a 
committee  recommended  naval  coast  protection,  but  it 
was  not  until  1848,  when  Denmark  blockaded  the 
German  coast,  that  anything  was  done  to  provide  for  it. 
In  that  year  the  National  Assembly  of  delegates  from 
various  German  Diets,  which  met  at  Frankfort,  voted  for 
the  marine  a  million  sterling  to  be  levied  on  the  German 
States,  but  only  one-half  of  the  money  could  be  collected. 
Still,  three  steam  frigates,  one  large  and  six  small  steam 
corvettes,  and  two  sailing  corvettes  were  got  together,  but 
in  1852,  owing  to  the  poverty  of  the  States,  two  of  the 
ships  were  sold  to  Prussia  for  .£60,000  and  the  rest  dis- 
posed of  by  auction  at  less  than  a  fourth  of  their  value. 
The  officers  and  men  were  disbanded  with  a  year's  pay. 

To  this  humiliating  state  of  things  Bismarck  refers  in 
his  "  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen."  "  The  German 
fleet,"  he  writes,  "  and  Kiel  harbour  as  a  foundation  for 
its  institution,  were  from  1848  on  one  of  the  most  burn- 
ing thoughts  at  whose  fire  German  aspirations  for  unity 
were  accustomed  to  warm  themselves  and  to  concentrate. 
Meanwhile,  however,  the  hatred  of  my  parliamentary 
opponents  was  stronger  than  the  interest  for  a  German 
fleet,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  Progressive  party  at 
that  time  preferred  to  see  the  newly-acquired  rights  of 
Prussia  to  Kiel,  and  the  prospect  of  a  maritime  future 
founded  on  its  possession,  rather  in  the  hands  of  the 
auctioneer,  Hannibal  Fischer,  than  in  those  of  a  Bis- 
marck Ministry." 

From  this  on  naval  development  in  Prussia  was  slow  ; 
there  was  no  interest  for  a  marine  either  among  the 
governing  classes  or  the  people ;  but  it  was  not  wholly 
neglected,  for  Wilhelmshaven  was  acquired  from  the 
Duchy  of  Oldenburg,  a  small  fleet  was  sent  to  the  Orient 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  169 

with  a  view  to  obtaining  commercial  treaties  and  con- 
cessions, and  a  sum  of  .£320,000  was  devoted  annually 
to  naval  requirements.  During  the  Danish  War  of  1864 
a  fleet  of  three  screw  corvettes,  two  paddle  steamers,  and 
a  few  gunboats  was  considered  sufficient  to  protect  the 
coasts  and  make  a  blockade  impossible. 

From  1885  onwards  there  had  been  several  Navy  Pro- 
posals, but  it  was  in  that  of  1889,  a  year  after  the 
Emperor's  accession,  that  the  beginning  of  Germany's 
naval  policy  is  to  be  found.  In  that  Proposal  it  was 
announced  that  the  Government  intended  to  depart 
from  the  previous  principles  of  naval  policy  which 
had  "  become  antiquated  owing  to  the  progress  of 
science  and  the  character  of  future  naval  warfare,  as 
also  owing  to  the  extension  of  Germany's  oversea 
relations."  Up  to  this  time  German  maritime  needs 
had  invariably  been  postponed  to  military  requirements. 
The  necessity  for  a  fleet  was  indeed  recognized,  but 
only  for  purposes  of  coast  defence  and  the  prevention 
of  a  blockade  of  the  ports  on  the  North  Sea  and 
Baltic.  To  this  end  no  large  fleet  was  considered 
needful,  particularly  as  the  war  with  France  had  demon- 
strated the  futility  of  coast  attack.  During  that  war  two 
small  fleets  were  sent  from  Cherbourg  to  blockade  the 
North  Sea  and  Baltic  coasts,  but  the  admirals  in  charge 
found  the  task  "  impossible "  and  returned  to  France 
after  a  few  single  engagements  with  divided  honours  had 
occurred.  At  that  time  the  German  people  felt  entirely 
secure  on  the  score  of  invasion.  The  numerous  espion- 
age incidents  of  more  recent  times  prove  that  this  feeling 
of  security  has  entirely  passed  away,  and  all  countries 
are  now  armed  as  though  they  were  to  be  invaded  to- 
morrow. 

Emperor  William  I  did  something,  though  not 
much,  for  the  German  navy.  Moltke  was  interested  in 
it  and  proposed  an  armoured  cruiser  fleet,  but  he  was 


i;o          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

thinking  chiefly  of  coast  defence.  Roon  also  took  up 
the  matter  and  laid  a  Navy  Bill  before  the  Diet  in  1865, 
but  it  was  rejected  because,  in  Virchow's  words,  the  Diet 
thought  "  the  Constitution  more  important  than  the 
development  of  the  army  and  navy."  The  war  of  1866 
showed  the  necessity  of  a  fleet,  and  this  time  the  Diet 
accepted  Roon's  proposals.  Still,  however,  the  object  was 
coast  defence  ;  and  when  Emperor  William  I  died  the 
navy  was  relatively  of  no  consideration.  In  the  ten  years 
between  1881  and  1891  only  one  armoured  cruiser,  the 
Oldenburg,  was  launched.  With  the  accession  of  the 
Emperor,  however,  began  a  new,  and  for  the  Emperor 
and  the  Empire — why  not  candidly  admit  it  ? — a  glorious 
chapter  in  German  naval  history. 

An  incident  during  the  reign  which  really  touched 
German  national  pride,  and  was  one  of  the  reasons 
which  caused  the  Emperor  to  accelerate  the  building  of 
a  powerful  fleet,  was  the  eviction,  if  the  term  is  not  too 
strong,  of  the  German  admiral,  Diedrich,  by  the  Ameri- 
cans from  the  harbour  of  Manila  in  the  course  of  the 
Spanish-American  War.  Admiral  Dewey  was  in  com- 
mand of  a  blockading  fleet  at  Manila.  The  ships  of 
various  nationalities,  and  among  them  some  German 
warships,  were  in  the  harbour.  Various  causes  of  irrita- 
tation  arose  between  the  Germans  and  Americans.  There 
was  talk  of  Spain's  being  desirous  of  selling  the  Philip- 
pines to  Germany,  and  the  impression  got  abroad  in 
America  that  the  Germans  were  inclined  to  behave  as  if 
they  were  already  the  new  masters  of  the  islands.  The 
German  warships  kept  going  in  and  out  of  the  harbour 
of  Millesares,  a  village  close  to  Manila,  in  connexion 
with  the  exchange  of  time-expired  men,  using  search- 
lights, the  American  admiral  thought,  in  an  unnecessary 
way,  and  doing  other  acts  which  he  considered  might 
give  information  to  blockade-running  vessels. 

In  accordance  with  custom,  the  Germans  had  at  first 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  171 

supplied  themselves  with  permits  from  the  American 
admiral  for  crossing  the  blockade  lines,  but  as  time  went 
on  the  German  ships  began  to  cross  the  line  without 
them.  Admiral  Dewey  thereupon  issued  an  order  that 
permits  must  be  obtained.  The  German  admiral  sent 
his  flag-lieutenant  to  Admiral  Dewey  to  protest,  on  the 
ground  that  warships  are  exempt  from  blockade  regula- 
tions. The  American  admiral's  reply  was  to  bring  his 
fist  down  on  his  cabin  table  and  say,  "  Tell  Admiral 
Diedrich,  with  my  compliments,  that  he  must  obtain 
permits,  and  that  if  a  German  ship  breaks  the  blockade 
lines  without  one  it  spells  war,  for  I  shall  fire  on  the  first 
vessel  that  attempts  it."  The  flag  officer  went  back  with 
the  message,  and  Admiral  Diedrich  took  his  ships,  which 
were  greatly  inferior  in  number  to  those  of  the  Americans, 
out  of  the  harbour. 

The  German  navy,  in  contrast  to  the  army,  is  a  purely 
imperial  institution — an  institution,  according  to  the 
Constitution,  "  entirely  under  the  chief  command  of  the 
Kaiser,"  consequently  in  no  respect  administered  or 
controlled  by  the  federated  kingdoms  and  states.  One 
speaks  of  the  "  royal  "  army,  but  of  the  "  imperial "  navy. 
The  Emperor  is  officially  described  as  the  navy's 
"Chef,"  superintends  its  organization  and  disposition, 
with  his  brother  Prince  Henry  as  Inspector-General,  and 
appoints  its  officials  and  officers.  He  exercises  his 
functions  through  the  Marine  Cabinet,  a  creation  of  his 
own,  which  serves  as  a  connecting  link  between  the 
Emperor  and  the  Admiralty. 

The  legislative  stages  of  the  growth  of  the  German  navy 
have  so  far  been  five  in  number.  The  first  Navy  Law 
passed  the  Reichstag  on  third  reading,  on  March  28,  1898, 
212  members  voting  for  it  and  139  against,  in  a  Parlia- 
ment of  397  members.  It  provided  for  the  building  of  a 
fleet  of  seventeen  battleships  within  a  certain  time,  and 
fixed  the  age  of  the  ships  at  twenty-five  years.  The  new 


172          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

ships  were  divided  into  ships-of-the-line  (a  new  desig- 
nation), large  armoured  cruisers,  and  small  armoured 
cruisers.  This  fleet,  however,  was  not  large  enough  to 
have  any  influence  on  sea  politics  or  seaborne  trade,  and 
the  occurrences  of  the  Spanish-American  War,  just  now 
begun  and  finished,  determined  the  Emperor  to  make 
further  proposals.  A  great  agitation  for  the  navy  was 
started  throughout  the  Empire,  and  on  January  25,  1900, 
Admiral  Tirpitz  laid  the  second  Navy  Bill  (a  "  Novelle," 
as  it  is  called)  before  the  Reichstag. 

The  new  measure  demanded  a  doubling  of  the  fleet. 
The  first  fleet  was  intended  chiefly  with  a  view  to  coast 
defence,  while  the  new  fleet  was  to  assure  "  the  economic 
development  of  Germany,  especially  of  its  world- 
commerce."  If  the  first  Navy  Bill  had  excited  surprise 
and  uneasiness  in  England,  the  sensations  roused  by  the 
second  may  be  imagined,  not  altogether  because  of  the 
increase  of  German  naval  power,  but  of  the  power  that 
would  result  when  the  new  German  navy  was  combined 
with  the  navies  of  Germany's  allies  of  the  Triplice.  The 
third  Navy  Bill  was  a  consequence  of  the  Russo-Japanese 
War  and  of  the  lesson  taught  by  the  sea-fight  of 
Tsuschima.  It  was  laid  before  the  Reichstag  on 
November  28,  1905,  for  "  a  stronger  representation  of 
the  Empire  abroad."  Its  main  object  was  to  increase  by 
almost  one-half  the  size  of  the  battleships,  thus  following 
the  lead  of  England,  which  had  decided  on  the  new  and 
famous  "  Dreadnought "  class  of  vessel,  remarkable  for 
its  five  revolving  armoured  turrets  (instead  of  two 
previously)  and  the  number  of  its  heavy  guns.  Hitherto 
English  warships  had  had  an  average  tonnage  of  about 
14,000  tons  :  the  tonnage  of  the  original  "  Dreadnought " 
was  18,300  tons.  Notwithstanding  the  enormous  nature 
of  the  financial  demand  (^47,600,000  within  eleven  years) 
the  Reichstag  passed  the  Bill  on  May  19,  1905.  A 
torpedo  fleet  of  144  boats,  in  24  divisions,  was  additionally 
provided  for  in  this  Bill. 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  173 

The  fourth  Navy  Bill  was  brought  in  in  1908,  with  the 
diminution  of  the  age  of  the  German  battleship  from 
twenty-five  to  twenty  years  as  its  principal  aim.  As  a 
result  the  number  of  new  ships  to  be  built  by  1912  was 
raised  from  six  to  twelve.  The  fifth  and  last  Navy  Bill 
was  passed  last  year,  1912,  creating  a  third  active 
squadron  as  reserve,  made  up  of  existing  vessels  and  three 
new  battleships.  The  German  navy  now  consists  of 
41  battleships  of  the  line,  12  large  armoured  cruisers,  and 
30  small  armoured  cruisers,  the  cruisers  being  for  pur- 
poses of  reconnaissance  ;  the  foreign-service  fleet  of 
8  large  and  10  small  armoured  cruisers ;  and  an  active 
reserve  fleet  of  16  battleships,  4  large  and  12  small 
armoured  cruisers. 

Like  sailors  everywhere,  the  German  sailor  is  a  frank 
and  hearty  type  of  his  race,  and  welcome  wherever  he 
goes.  The  German  naval  officer  is  usually  of  middle- 
class  extraction,  while  a  slightly  larger  proportion  of  the 
officers  of  the  army  is  taken  from  the  noblesse.  He  is  a 
fine,  frank,  and  manly  fellow  as  a  rule,  and,  like  the 
Emperor,  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  his  navy  is 
closely  modelled  on  that  of  Great  Britain.  Moreover,  in 
addition  to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  his  profession,  he  is 
able,  in  two  cases  out  of  three,  to  converse  with  useful 
fluency  in  English,  French,  and  in  some  cases  Italian 
as  well. 

The  navy,  like  the  army,  is  recruited  by  conscription, 
but  active  service  is  for  three  years,  as  in  the  German 
cavalry  and  artillery,  while  only  two  years  in  the  German 
infantry.  Naturally  young  men  of  an  adventurous  turn 
of  mind  frequently  elect  for  the  navy,  as  they  hope 
thereby  to  see  something  of  the  world.  At  the  end  of 
their  third  year  of  service  they  may  go  back  to  civil  life 
as  reservists  or  may  "  capitulate,"  that  is,  continue  in 
active  service  for  another  year,  and  renew  their  "  capitu- 
lation "  thenceforward  from  year  to  year.  The  ordinary 


174          WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

sailor  receives  (since  1912)  the  equivalent  of  145.  6d.  in 
cash  monthly  and  93.  for  clothing,  but  when  at  sea 
additional  pay  of  6s.  a  month.  The  result  of  the  system 
of  conscription  is  that  about  40  per  cent,  of  the  fleet's 
crews  consist  of  what  may  be  called  seasoned  sailors,  the 
remainder  being  three-year  conscripts.  The  officer  class 
is  recruited  from  young  men  who  have  passed  a  certain 
school  standard  examination  and  enter  the  navy  as 
cadets.  The  one-year-volunteer  system  (Einjahrigei 
Diensf)  only  partially  obtains  in  the  navy,  for  purposes, 
namely,  of  coast  defence  and  other  services  on  land. 
After  two  years  the  cadet  becomes  a  midshipman,  and 
with  five  or  six  other  middies  serves  for  a  year  or  so  on 
board  ship,  when  he  becomes  a  sub-lieutenant  and  is 
promoted  by  seniority  to  full  lieutenant,  captain-lieu- 
tenant (the  English  naval  lieutenant  with  eight  years' 
service),  corvette-captain  (the  English  naval  commander, 
with  three  stripes),  frigate-captain  (corresponding  in  rank 
to  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  English  army),  and  finally 
captain-at-sea  (with  four  stripes),  when  he  may  get 
command  of  a  battleship.  To  reach  this  great  object  of 
the  German  naval  officer's  ambition  takes  on  an  average 
twenty-four  years,  or  about  the  same  period  as  in  the 
British  navy. 

The  upper  ranks,  in  ascending  order,  are  contre- 
admiral  (the  English  rear-admiral),  vice-admiral,  admiral, 
grand-admiral  (English  Admiral  of  the  Fleet).  There 
are  only  four  grand-admirals  in  Germany,  namely,  the 
Emperor  (as  "Chef"  of  the  navy),  his  brother  Prince 
Henry  (as  inspector-general),  retired  Admiral  von  Koester 
(president  of  the  Navy  League),  and  Admiral  von  Tirpitz 
(Secretary  of  Admiralty  and  the  only  "active"  grand- 
admiral).  King  George  V  of  England  is  an  admiral  of 
the  German  navy,  as  the  Emperor  is  an  admiral  of  the 
British  navy. 

Salutes  are  a  matter  of  international  agreement.     They 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  175 

are :  33  guns  (simultaneously  from  all  ships)  for  the 
Emperor  and  foreign  monarchs,  21  for  the  Crown  Prince 
of  Germany  or  of  a  foreign  country,  19  for  a  grand- 
admiral  or  an  ambassador,  17  for  an  admiral,  the 
Secretary  of  Admiralty  or  inspector-general,  15  for  a 
vice-admiral,  13  for  contre-admiral,  and  so  descend- 
ing. 101  guns  are  fired  on  the  Emperor's  birthday 
or  on  the  birth  of  an  imperial  prince.  66  guns  is  the 
salute  when  a  German  monarch  ascends  the  imperial 
throne,  and  101  when  a  German  Emperor  dies. 

The  yearly  salaries  of  German  naval  officers  are  as 
follows:  Admiral,  ^1,294  (of  which  £699  is  "pay"), 
vice-admiral,  ^897  (^677  "  pay  "),  contre-admiral,  ^772 
(£677  "Pay"),  captain-at-sea,  £520  (£438  "pay"), 
corvette-captain,  ^396  (^280  "  pay "),  full  lieutenant, 
.£174  (£120  "pay"),  and  so  on  downwards.  Jews  are 
not  allowed  to  become  officers  of  the  navy,  thus  following 
the  practice  in  the  army.  There  is  no  law  to  prevent 
Jews  becoming  officers  in  either  army  or  navy,  but,  as  a 
matter  of  tradition  or  prejudice,  no  regimental  or  naval 
commander  is  willing  to  accept  an  Israelite  among  his 
officers. 

It  is  time,  however,  to  return  to  the  personal  doings 
of  the  Emperor.  He  is  responsible  for  Germany's  foreign 
policy,  and  his  duties  in  connexion  with  it  and  with  the 
navy  must  often  have  suggested  to  him  the  desirability  of 
seeing  with  his  own  eyes  something  of  the  Orient,  the 
new  battlefield  of  the  world's  diplomacy,  and  possibly  a 
new  Eldorado  for  European  merchants  and  engineers. 
His  journey  to  the  East,  now  undertaken,  was,  however, 
chiefly  a  religious  one,  though  it  had  also  something  of 
a  chivalric  character,  since  much  of  every  German's 
imagination  is  concerned  with  the  Crusades,  the  Order  of 
Knight  Templars,  and  similar  historical  or  legendary 
incidents  and  personalities  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
struggle  between  the  Christian  and  the  Saracen.  The 


1 76          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

birthplace  of  Christ  has  special  interest  for  a  Hohen- 
zollern  who  holds  his  kingship  by  divine  grace,  and  in 
the  Emperor's  case  because  his  father  had  made  the 
journey  to  Jerusalem  thirty  years  before.  The  Emperor, 
lastly,  cannot  but  have  been  glad  to  escape,  if  only  for  a 
time,  such  harassing  concerns  as  party  politics,  scribbling 
journalists,  long-winded  ministerial  harangues,  and  Social 
Democrats. 

The  journey  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress  to  Palestine 
occupied  about  a  month  from  the  middle  of  October, 
1898,  to  the  middle  of  the  following  November,  and 
while  it  was  one  of  the  most  delightful  and  picturesque 
experiences  of  the  Emperor,  it  entailed  some  unforeseen 
and  not  altogether  agreeable  consequences.  It  was  very 
much  criticized  in  Germany  as  an  exhibition  of  a 
theatrical  kind,  of  the  "  decorative  in  policy,"  as 
Bismarck  used  to  say,  who  saw  no  utility  in  decora- 
tion, and  evidently  did  not  agree  with  Shakspeare  that 
the  "world  is  still  deceived  by  ornament."  It  was 
objected  that  the  Emperor  should  have  stayed  at  home 
to  look  after  imperial  business,  that  such  a  journey  must 
excite  suspicion  in  England  and  France — in  the  former 
because  England  is  an  Oriental  power,  and  in  the  latter 
because  France  is  supposed  to  claim  special  protective 
rights  over  Christianity  in  the  East. 

The  Englishman  who  reads  what  German  writers  say 
about  the  journey  gets  the  impression  that  the  criticism 
was  an  expression  of  jealousy — jealousy,  as  we  know  from 
Bismarck  and  Prince  Biilow,  being  a  national  German 
failing.  Every  German  ardently  desires  to  see  Italy  and 
the  Orient,  but  until  of  late  years  few  Germans  had  the 
means  of  gratifying  the  wish.  In  one  point,  however, 
the  critics  were  right.  The  Emperor,  when  in  Damascus, 
after  saying  that  he  felt  "  deeply  moved  at  standing  on 
the  spot  where  one  of  the  most  knightly  sovereigns  of  all 
times,  the  great  Sultan  Saladin,  stood,"  went  on  to  say 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  177 

that  Sultan  Abdul  "and  the  three  hundred  million 
Mohammedans  who,  scattered  over  the  earth,  venerated 
him  as  their  Caliph,  might  be  assured  that  at  all  times 
the  German  Emperor  would  be  their  friend."  It  was 
a  harmless  and  vague  remark  enough,  one  would  think, 
but  political  writers  in  all  countries  have  made  great 
capital  out  of  it  ever  since  whenever  Germany's  Oriental 
policy  is  discussed.  At  the  risk  of  repetition  it  may  be 
said  that  that  policy  is,  in  the  East  as  elsewhere,  a  purely 
economic  one.  The  Emperor's  mistake  perhaps  chiefly 
lay  in  raising  hopes  in  Turkish  minds  which  were  very 
unlikely  to  be  realized. 

The  Emperor's  allusion  to  Saladin  as  the  most  knightly 
sovereign  of  all  times  was  a  bad  blunder.  He  was  doubt- 
less carried  away  by  a  combination,  in  his  probably  at 
this  time  somewhat  excited  imagination,  of  the  chivalrous 
figures  of  the  crusading  times  with  thoughts  of  the 
German  Knight  Templars  and  other  soldierly  characters. 
Saladin  was  a  brave  man  physically,  and  fond  of  imperial 
magnificence,  as  is  only  natural  and  necessary  for  an 
Oriental  potentate  to  be ;  and  a  good  deal  of  Eastern 
legend  grew  up  about  him  on  that  account.  Legend  was 
enough  for  the  Emperor  in  his  then  romantic  mood. 
He  forgot,  or  did  not  know,  that  Saladin,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  a  modern  and  in  reality  far  more  knightly  age, 
was  a  sanguinary  and  fanatic  ruffian,  who  showed  no 
mercy  to  his  Christian  prisoners — killed,  in  fact,  one  of 
them,  Rainald  de  Chatillon,  with  his  own  hand,  sacked 
Jerusalem,  turned  the  Temple  of  Solomon  into  a  mosque, 
after  having  it  "  disinfected  "  with  rose-water,  and  killed 
Pope  Urban  III,  who  died,  the  chronicles  tell,  of 
sorrow  at  the  news. 

The  journey  was,  as  has  been  said,  a  delightful  and 
picturesque  experience  for  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress. 
They  passed  through  Venice  with  its  marble  palaces, 
sailed  over  the  sapphire  waters  of  the  Adriatic,  and 


i;8          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

were  received  with  great  demonstrations  of  welcome  by 
the  Sultan  in  Constantinople.  When  they  were  leaving, 
the  Sultan  gave  the  Emperor  a  gigantic  carpet,  and  the 
Emperor  gave  the  Sultan  a  gold  walking-stick,  an  exact 
imitation  of  the  stick  Frederick  the  Great  used  to  lean 
on,  and  sometimes,  very  likely,  apply  to  the  backs  of 
his  trusty  but  stupid  lieges. 

Before  disposing  of  the  events  of  this  period  of  the 
Emperor's  life  mention  may  be  made  of  two  or  three 
occurrences  which  must  have  been  a  source  of  political 
interest  or  social  entertainment  to  him.  From  among 
them  we  select  the  Dreyfus  case  and  the  historic  scene 
arranged  for  the  painter,  Adolf  Menzel,  in  Sans  Souci. 

The  Dreyfus  case,  though  its  investigation  brought  to 
light  no  fact  implicating  the  German  authorities,  naturally 
aroused  interest  throughout  Germany.  The  interest  was 
felt  equally  in  the  army,  notwithstanding  that  it  contains 
no  Jewish  officer,  and  among  the  civil  population.  In 
France,  it  will  be  remembered,  the  case  acquired  its 
importance  from  the  charge,  made  by  the  anti-Semite 
Drumont  and  his  journal  La  Libre  Parole,  that  the 
Jews  were  exploiting  the  Government  and  the  country. 
There  is  an  anti-Semite  party  in  Germany,  founded  by 
the  Court  preacher  Stoecker  in  1878,  but  possibly  owing 
to  the  prudence  and  good  citizenship  of  the  Jews  in 
Germany,  it  has  gained  little  weight  or  momentum 
since. 

The  "  affaire,"  as  it  was  universally  known,  was  only 
once  referred  to  in  the  German  Parliament,  in  January, 
1898,  when  Chancellor  von  Biilow  declared  "in  the  most 
positive  way  possible  "  that  there  had  "  never  been  any 
traffic  or  relations  of  any  kind  whatsoever  between 
Dreyfus  and  any  German  authority,"  adding  that  the 
alleged  finding  of  an  official  German  communication  in 
the  wastepaper  basket  of  the  German  Embassy  in  Paris 
was  a  fiction.  The  Chancellor  concluded  by  saying  that 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  179 

the  case  had  in  no  respect  ever  troubled  relations  between 
Germany  and  France. 

The  incident  most  often  cited  as  evidence  of  the 
Emperor's  love  of  recalling  the  days  of  his  great 
ancestor,  Frederick  the  Great,  is  the  concert  he  arranged 
at  Sans  Souci  on  June  13,  1895,  to  gratify,  we  may  be 
sure,  as  well  as  surprise,  the  famous  painter.  The 
incident  and  its  origin  are  described  in  a  work  already 
mentioned,  the  "Private  Lives  of  William  II  and  His 
Consort,"  by  a  lady  of  the  Court.  The  account  given 
below  is  illustrative  of  the  unfriendly  sentiments  which 
are  evident  throughout  the  work,  but  the  lady  is  probably 
fairly  accurate  as  regards  the  incident,  and  in  any  case 
her  gossip  will  give  the  reader  some  notion,  though  by 
no  means  an  entirely  faithful  one,  of  the  Court  atmosphere 
at  the  time.  Talk  at  the  palace  during  afternoon  tea 
having  turned  on  the  fact  that  Adolf  Menzel,  the  painter, 
would  shortly  celebrate  his  eightieth  birthday,  some  one 
remarked  on  the  refusal  by  the  Court  marshal  in  the 
previous  reign  to  allow  him  to  see  the  scene  of  his 
celebrated  "  Flute  Concert  at  Sans  Souci,"  which  he 
was  then  composing,  lighted  up.  The  conversation, 
according  to  the  lady  writer,  continued  thus  : — 

"  '  Maybe  he  was  frightened  at  the  prospect  of  furnish- 
ing a  couple  of  dozen  wax  candles/  sneered  the  Duke 
of  Schleswig. 

" '  More  likely  he  knew  nothing  of  Menzel's  growing 
reputation,'  suggested  Begas,  the  sculptor. 

"The  Emperor  overheard  the  last  words.  'Are  you 
prepared  to  say  that  my  grand-uncle's  chief  marshal 
failed  to  recognize  the  genius  of  the  foremost  Hohen- 
zollern  painter  ?  '  he  asked  sharply. 

" '  I  would  not  like  to  libel  a  dead  man/  answered 
Begas,  '  but  appearances  are  certainly  against  the  Count. 
I  have  it  from  Menzel's  own  lips  that  the  Court  marshal 
refused  him  all  and  every  assistance  when  he  was 


i8o  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

painting  the  scenes  of  life  in  Sans  Souci.  The  rooms 
of  the  chateau  were  accessible  to  him  only  to  the  same 
extent  as  to  any  other  paying  visitor  or  the  hordes  of 
foreign  tourists,  and  he  had  to  make  his  sketches  piece- 
meal, gathering  corroborative  and  additional  material 
in  museums  and  picture-galleries.' 

"  Quick  as  a  flash  the  Kaiser  turned  to  Count  Eulenburg. 
'  I  shall  repay  the  debt  Prussia  owes  to  Menzel,'  he 
spoke,  not  without  declamatory  effect.  '  We  will  have 
the  representation  of  the  Sans  Souci  flute  concert  three 
days  hence.  Your  programme  is  to  be  ready  to-morrow 
morning  at  ten.  Menzel,  mind  you,  must  know  nothing 
of  this :  merely  command  him  to  attend  us  at  the 
Schloss  at  supper  and  for  a  musical  evening.'  And, 
turning  round,  he  said  to  her  Majesty  :  '  You  will 
impersonate  Princess  Amalia,  and  you,  Kessel'  (Adjutant 
von  Kessel,  then  Commander  of  the  First  Life  Guards), 
'  engage  all  your  tallest  and  best-looking  officers  to 
enact  the  great  King's  military  household.' 

"  Again  the  Kaiser  addressed  Count  Eulenberg :  '  Be 
sure  to  have  the  best  artists  of  the  Royal  Orchestra 
perform  Frederick  the  Great's  compositions,  and  let 
Joachim  be  engaged  for  the  occasion.'  Saying  this, 
he  took  her  Majesty's  arm,  and  bidding  his  guests  and 
the  Court  a  hasty  good-night,  strode  out  of  the 
apartment." 

A  description  of  the  Empress's  costume  for  the  concert 
follows.  "Her  Majesty's  dress  consisted  of  a  petticoat 
of  sea-green  satin,  richly  ornamented  with  silver  lace 
of  antique  pattern  and  an  overdress  of  dark  velvet, 
embroidered  with  gold  and  set  with  precious  stones. 
On  her  powdered  hair,  amplified  by  one  of  Herr  Adeljana, 
the  Viennese  coiffeur's,  most  successful  creations,  sat  a 
jaunty  three-cornered  hat  having  a  blazing  aigrette  of 
large  diamonds  in  front,  the  identical  cluster  of  white 
stones  which  figured  at  the  great  Napoleon's  coronation, 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  181 

and  which  he  lost,  together  with  his  entire  equipage, 
in  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  In  her  ears  her  Majesty  wore 
pearl  ornaments  representing  a  small  bunch  of  cherries. 
Like  the  aigrette,  they  are  Crown  '  property,  and  that 
Auguste  Victoria  thought  well  enough  of  the  jewels  to 
rescue  them  from  oblivion  for  this  occasion  was  certainly 
most  appropriate."  The  Emperor's  costume  is  also 
described.  "  He  wore  the  cuirassier  uniform  of  the 
great  Frederick's  period,  a  highly  ornamented  dress  that 
suited  the  War  Lord,  who  was  painted  and  powdered 
to  perfection,  extremely  well,  especially  as  Wellington 
boots,  a  very  becoming  wig  and  his  strange  head-gear 
really  and  seemingly  added  to  his  figure,  while  his 
usually  stern  face  beamed  pleasantly  under  the  powder 
and  rouge  laid  on  by  expert  hands." 

The  arrival  of  Menzel  is  then  narrated  and  the 
reception  by  the  Emperor,  who  took  the  part  of  an 
adjutant  of  Frederick  the  Great's,  and  in  that  character 
"  bombarded  the  helpless  master,"  as  the  chronicler  says, 
"  with  forty  stanzas  of  alleged  verse,  in  which  the  deeds 
of  Prussia's  kings  and  the  masterpieces  that  com- 
memorate them  were  extolled  with  a  prosiness  that 
sounded  like  an  afterclap  of  William's  Reichstag  and 
monument  orations."  A  real  concert  followed,  and 
supper  was  taken  in  the  Marble  Hall  adjoining.  The 
authoress  concludes  as  follows  : — 

"  I  was  contemplating  these  reminiscences  (the  pictures 
of  La  Barberini)  in  silent  reverie  when  the  door  opened 
and  the  Kaiser  came  in  with  little  Menzel. 

" '  I  have  a  mind  to  engage  Angeli  to  paint  her 
Majesty's  picture  in  the  costume  of  Princess  Amalia,' 
said  the  Emperor  '  What  do  you  think  of  it  ? ' 

" '  Angeli  is  painter  to  many  emperors  and  kings,' 
replied  the  Professor,  and  I  saw  him  smile  diplomatically 
as  he  moved  his  spectacles  to  get  a  better  view  of  the 


i82  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

allegorical  canvas  on  the  left  wall  that  exhibits  the 
nude  figure  of  the  famous  mistress  in  its  entirety. 

"  '  I  am  glad  you  agree  with  me  on  that  point/  said 
the  Emperor,  impatient  to  execute  the  idea  that  had 
crossed  his  mind.  '  I  will  telegraph  to  him  to-night.' 

"And  when,  five  minutes  later,  Menzel  bent  over  my 
hand  to  take  formal  leave,  I  heard  him  murmur  in  his 
dry,  absent-minded  manner — '  Pesne  .  .  .  Angeli  .  .  . 
Frederick  the  Great  .  .  .  William  II  1" 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Court  atmosphere  of  this 
time.  The  following  extracts  from  the  Memoirs  of 
ex-Chancellor  Prince  Hohenlohe  will  assist  the  reader, 
perhaps  even  better  than  a  connected  account,  to  enter, 
in  imagination  at  all  events,  into  it.  The  conversations 
cited  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Prince  turn  on  all 
sorts  of  topics — the  pass  question  in  Alsace  (where 
Hohenlohe  was  then  Statthalter),  the  possibility  of  war 
with  Russia,  pheasant  shooting,  projected  monuments, 
the  breach  with  Bismarck,  the  Triple  Alliance,  and  a 
hundred  more  of  the  most  different  kinds.  Once  talking 
domestic  politics,  the  Emperor  said  :  "It  will  end  by 
the  Social  Democrats  getting  the  upper  hand.  Then 
they  will  plunder  the  people.  Not  that  I  care.  I  will 
have  the  palace  loop-holed  and  look  on  at  the  plundering. 
The  burghers  will  soon  call  on  me  for  help ; "  and  on 
another  occasion,  in  1889,  Hohenlohe  tells  of  a  dinner 
at  the  palace,  and  how  after  dinner,  when  the  Empress 
and  her  ladies  had  gone  into  another  salon,  the  Emperor, 
Hohenlohe,  and  Dr.  Hinzpeter  (the  Emperor's  old  tutor) 
conversed  together  for  an  hour,  all  standing.  "  The 
first  subject  touched  on,"  relates  the  Prince,  was 
the  gymnasia  (high  schools),  the  Emperor  holding 
that  they  made  too  exacting  claims  on  the  scholars,  while 
Hohenlohe  and  Hinzpeter  pointed  out  that  otherwise 
the  run  on  the  schools  would  be  too  great  and  cause 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  183 

danger  of  a  "  learned  proletariat."  Prince  Hohenlohe 
concludes  :  "  In  the  whole  conversation,  which  never 
once  came  to  a  standstill,  I  was  pleased  by  the  fresh, 
lively  manner  of  the  Emperor,  and  was  in  all  ways 
reminded  of  his  grandfather,  Prince  Albert." 

Next  year  the  Prince  was  present  at  an  official  dinner 
in  the  Berlin  palace.  He  writes  : — 

"  BERLIN,  22  March,  1890. 

"  At  seven,  dinner  in  the  White  Salon  (at  the  palace). 
I  sat  opposite  the  Empress  and  between  Moltke  and 
Kameke.  The  former  was  very  communicative,  but  was 
greatly  interfered  with  by  the  continuous  music,  and  was 
very  angry  at  it.  Two  bands  were  placed  facing  each 
other,  and  when  one  ceased  the  other  began  to  play  its 
trumpets.  It  was  hardly  endurable.  The  Emperor 
made  a  speech  in  honour  of  the  Queen  of  England  and 
the  Prince  of  Wales  (afterwards  King  Edward,  present 
on  the  occasion  of  the  investiture  of  his  son  Prince 
George,  now  King  George  V,  with  the  Order  of  the  Black 
Eagle),  and  mentioned  his  nomination  as  English  admiral 
(whose  uniform  he  was  wearing)  and  the  comradeship-in- 
arms at  the  battle  of  Waterloo  ;  he  also  hoped  that  the 
English  fleet  and  the  German  army  would  together  main- 
tain peace.  Moltke  then  said  to  me  :  '  Goethe  says,  "  a 
political  song,  a  discordant  song."  ' 

"  He  also  said  he  hoped  the  speech  wouldn't  get  into 
the  papers."  (It  did,  however.) 

The  next  extract  describes  a  conversation  Prince 
Hohenlohe  had  with  the  Emperor  at  Potsdam  the 
following  year.  It  gives  an  idea  of  the  ordinary  nature 
of  conversations  between  the  Emperor  and  his  high 
officials  on  such  occasions. 

"  BERLIN,  13  December,  1891. 

"  Yesterday  forenoon  was  invited  to  the  New  Palace 
at  Potsdam.  Besides  myself  were  the  Prince  and 


1 84  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Princess  von  Wied,  with  the  Mistress  of  the  Robes  and 
the  Court  marshal.  Emperor  and  Empress  very  amiable. 
The  Emperor  spoke  of  his  hunting  in  Alsace,  and  sup- 
posed it  would  be  some  years  before  the  game  there 
would  be  abundant.  Then  he  expressed  his  satisfaction 
at  my  acquisition  of  Gensburg,  and  when  I  told  him 
there  was  not  much  room  in  the  castle  he  said,  no  matter, 
he  could  nevertheless  pass  a  few  days  there  with  a  couple 
of  gentlemen  very  pleasantly.  Passing  to  politics,  he 
gave  vent  to  his  displeasure  at  the  attitude  of  the  Con- 
servative party,  who  were  hindering  the  formation  of 
a  Conservative-monarchical  combination  against  the 
Progressives  and  Social  Democrats.  This  was  all  the 
more  regrettable  as  the  Progressives,  if  now  and  then 
they  opposed  the  Social  Democrats,  still  at  bottom  were 
with  them.  The  Emperor  approves  of  the  commercial 
treaties  and  seemed  to  have  great  confidence  in  Caprivi 
generally.  As  we  came  to  speak  of  intrigues  and  gossip, 
the  Emperor  hinted  that  Bismarck  was  behind  them. 
He  added  that  people  were  urging  him  from  many 
quarters  to  be  reconciled  with  Bismarck,  but  it  was  not 
for  him  to  take  the  first  step.  He  seemed  well  informed 
about  the  situation  in  Russia  and  considered  it  very 
dangerous.  When  I  asked  the  Emperor  how  he  stood 
now  with  the  Czar,  he  replied  '  Badly.  He  went  through 
here  without  paying  me  a  visit,  and  I  only  write  him 
ceremonious  letters.  The  Queen  of  Denmark  prevented 
him  coming  to  Berlin,  for  fear  he  should  go  to  Potsdam. 
She  has  gone  now  with  him  to  Livadia  on  the  pretext 
of  the  silver  wedding,  but  in  reality  to  keep  him  away 
from  Berlin.' " 

Writing  of  a  lunch  at    Potsdam,  under  date    Berlin, 
November  10,   1892,  the  Prince  notes  : — 

"  The  Emperor  came  late  and  looked  tired,  but  was  in 
good  spirits.    We  went  immediately  to  table.    Afterwards 


SPACIOUS   TIMES  185 

the  conversation  turned  on  Bismarck.  '  When  one  com- 
pares what  Bismarck  does  with  that  for  which  poor 
Arnim  had  to  suffer  !'  He  would  do  nothing,  he  said, 
against  Bismarck,  but  the  consequences  of  the  whole 
thing  were  very  serious.  Waldersee  and  Bismarck 
couldn't  abide  one  another.  They  had,  however,  become 
allies  out  of  common  hatred  of  Caprivi,  whose  fall 
Bismarck  desired.  What  might  happen  afterwards  neither 
cared." 

The  following  was  penned  after  the  old  Chancellor's 
visit  of  reconciliation  : — 

"  BERLIN,  27  January,  1894. 

"  To-night  gala  performance  at  the  opera.  Between  the 
acts  I  talked  first  with  different  monarchs,  the  King  of 
Wurttemberg,  the  King  of  Saxony,  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Oldenburg,  and  so  on.  Then  I  was  sent  for  by  the 
Empress,  of  whom  I  took  leave.  The  Emperor  came 
shortly  afterwards.  We  spoke  of  Bismarck's  visit  the 
day  before  and  the  good  consequences  for  the  Emperor 
it  would  have.  '  Yes/  said  the  Emperor,  '  now  they  can 
put  up  triumphal  arches  for  him  in  Vienna  and  Munich, 
I  am  all  the  time  a  length  ahead.  If  the  press  continues 
its  abuse  it  only  puts  itself  and  Bismarck  in  the  wrong.' 
I  mentioned  that  red-hot  partisans  of  Bismarck  were 
greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  visit,  and  said  the  Emperor 
should  have  gone  to  Friedrichsruh  (Bismarck's  estate 
near  Hamburg).  '  I  am  well  aware  of  it,'  said  the 
Emperor, '  but  for  that  they  would  have  had  a  long  time 
to  wait.  He  had  to  come  here.'  On  the  whole  the 
Emperor  spoke  very  sensibly  and  decisively,  and  I  did 
not  at  all  get  the  impression  that  he  now  wants  to  change 
everything." 

Prince  Hohenlohe  was  summoned  to  Potsdam  in 
October,  1894,  by  a  telegram  from  the  Emperor.  All 


1 86  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

the  telegram  said  was  that  "  important  interests  of  the 
Empire  "  were  concerned.  Hohenlohe  was  only  aware 
of  the  dismissal  of  Caprivi  from  a  newspaper  he  read 
in  Frankfort  on  his  way  to  Potsdam.  The  Emperor  met 
him  at  the  station  (Wildpark)  and  conveyed  him  to  the 
New  Palace,  where  the  Prince  agreed  to  accept  the 
Chancellorship  "at  the  Emperor's  earnest  request." 
Princess  Hohenlohe  was  decidedly  against  her  husband, 
who  was  now  seventy-five,  accepting  the  post,  and  even 
ventured  to  telegraph  to  the  Empress  to  prevent  it. 

The  Prince  has  a  note  on  his  intercourse  with  his 
imperial  master.  He  is  writing  to  his  son,  Prince 
Alexander  : — 

"BERLIN,  17  October,  1896. 

"  It  is  a  curious  thing — my  relations  to  his  Majesty.  I 
come  now  and  then  to  the  conclusion,  owing  to  his  small 
inconsideratenesses,  that  he  intentionally  avoids  me  and 
that  things  can't  continue  so.  Then  again  I  talk  with 
him  and  see  that  I  am  mistaken.  Yesterday  I  had 
occasion  to  report  to  him,  and  he  poured  out  his  heart 
to  me  and  took  occasion  in  the  friendliest  way  to  ask 
my  advice.  And  thus  my  distrust  is  dissipated." 

Hunting  with  the  Emperor  : — 

"  15  December,  1896. 

"Yesterday  I  obeyed  the  royal  invitation  to  hunt  at 
Springe.  I  had  to  leave  Berlin  as  early  as  7  a.m.  to 
catch  the  royal  train  at  Potsdam.  From  Springe  railway 
station  we  passed  immediately  into  the  hunting  district. 
Only  sows  were  shot.  I  brought  down  six.  Then  we 
drove  to  the  Schloss,  rested  for  a  few  hours  and  then 
dined.  The  Emperor  was  in  very  good  humour  and 
talked  incessantly  ;  in  addition  the  Uhlan  band  and  the 
usually  noisy  conversation." 


SPACIOUS    TIMES  187 

When  presenting  his  resignation  to  the  Emperor 
at  Hamburg  in  October,  1900,  the  Prince,  who  had 
evidently  been  for  some  time  aware  that  his  term  of 
office  was  drawing  to  a  close,  describes  his  conversa- 
tion with  the  Emperor  : — 

"  At  noon,  as  I  came  to  the  Emperor,  he  received  me  in 
a  very  friendly  way.  We  first  settled  about  summoning 
the  Reichstag,  and  then  his  Majesty  said,  '  I  have 
received  a  very  distressing  letter ' — an  allusion  to  the 
Chancellor's  official  letter  of  resignation,  which  he  had 
placed  in  the  Emperor's  hands  through  Tschirschky, 
Foreign  Minister.  "As  I  then,"  continued  Hohenlohe, 
"  explained  the  necessity  of  my  resignation  on  the  ground 
of  my  health  and  age  the  Emperor,  apparently  quite 
satisfied,  agreed,  so  that  I  could  see  he  had  already 
expected  my  request  and  consequently  that  it  was  high 
time  I  should  make  it.  We  talked  further  over  the 
question  of  my  successor,  and  I  was  agreeably  surprised 
when  he  forthwith  mentioned  Billow,  who  certainly  at 
the  moment  is  the  best  man  available.  His  Majesty  then 
said  he  would  telegraph  to  Lucanus  (Chief  of  the  Civil 
Cabinet)  to  bring  Biilow  to  Homburg  so  that  we  might 
consult  about  details.  I  breakfasted  with  their  Majesties 
and  went  calmly  home." 

Writing  to  his  daughter  next  day  Prince  Hohenlohe, 
in  words  that  do  equal  credit  to  himself  and  the  imperial 
family,  says  :  "It  is  always  a  pleasure  to  me  when  on 
such  occasions  I  can  convince  myself  of  the  Christian 
disposition  of  the  imperial  family.  In  our  -:or  the  most 
part  unbelieving  age  this  family  seems  to  me  like  an 
oasis  in  the  desert," 

Prince  Hohenlohe  was  succeeded  as  Chancellor  by 
Prince  von  Biilow,  who  had  held  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  for  the  preceding  two  years, 


i88  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

and  practically  conducted  the  Emperor's  foreign  policy 
during  that  time.  He  had  served  as  Secretary  of  Embassy 
in  St.  Petersburg,  Vienna,  and  Athens,  was  a  Secretary 
to  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  fought  in  the  war  with  France, 
and  after  seven  years  as  Minister  in  Bucharest  spent  four 
years  as  Ambassador  in  Rome.  Here  he  married  a 
divorced  Italian  lady,  the  Countess  Minghetti.  After 
acting  as  deputy  Foreign  Secretary  for  the  late  Baron 
Marschall  von  Bieberstein,  he  was  appointed  permanent 
Foreign  Secretary,  and  on  October  17,  1900,  was  called 
by  the  Emperor  to  the  most  responsible  post  in  the 
Empire  next  to  his  own,  that  of  Imperial  Chancellor. 
The  Emperor's  choice  was  fully  justified,  for  the  new 
Chancellor  proved  himself  to  be  the  most  brilliant 
diplomatist  and  parliamentarian  since  Bismarck. 


IX 

THE   NEW   CENTURY 

1900-1901 

GERMAN  writers,  commenting  on  the  turn  of  the 
century,  claim  to  discover  a  change  in  the 
Emperor's  character  about  this  period.  He  has 
lost  much  of  his  imaginative,  his  Lohengrin,  vein,  and 
has  become  more  practical,  more  prosaic  and  matter-of- 
fact.  To  use  the  German  word,  he  is  now  a  Realpolitiker, 
one  who  deals  in  things,  not  words  or  theories,  and 
drawing  his  gaze  from  the  stars  makes  them  dwell  more 
attentively  on  the  immediate  practical  considerations  of 
the  world  about  him.  His  nature  has  not  changed,  of 
course,  nor  his  manner,  but  he  has  begun  to  see  that  he 
must  employ  means  and  ways  different  from  those  he 
employed  previously.  He  has  not  become  a  Bismarck, 
for  he  still  pursues  his  aims  more  in  the  spirit  of  the 
colonel  of  a  regiment  leading  his  men  to  the  attack  with 
banners  flying,  drums  beating,  swords  rattling  in  their 
scabbards  and  mailed  gauntlets  held  threateningly  aloft, 
than  in  that  of  the  cool  and  calculating  politician  rumi- 
nating in  his  closet  on  the  tactics  of  his  opponents,  and 
deliberating  how  best  to  meet  and  confound  them  ;  but 
he  gives  more  thought  to  what  is  going  on  about  him, 
to  party  politics,  to  the  economic  necessities  of  the  hour, 
and  to  modern  science  and  its  inventions. 

What  strikes  the  Englishman  perhaps  as  much  as  any- 
thing  in   the   Emperor's    character    at  this  time   is   the 

189 


WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Cromwellian  trait  in  it.  This  is  a  side  of  his  Protean 
nature  which  never  seems  to  have  been  adequately  recog- 
nized in  England,  yet  in  a  singularly  baffling  character- 
composition  it  is  one  of  the  fundamental  elements.  The 
view  of  Prussian  monarchy,  inherited  from  one  Hohen- 
zollern  to  another  for  generation  after  generation, 
that  the  race  of  people  to  which  he  belonged  (with  any 
other  race  he  could  include  by  conquest  in  it)  has  been 
handed  over  by  Heaven  for  all  eternity  to  his  family, 
naturally  predisposes  him  to  take  a  religious,  a  patriarchal, 
one  might  say  an  Hebraic,  view  of  government ;  but  in 
addition  we  find  the  warrior  spirit  at  all  times  going 
hand  in  hand  with  the  religious  spirit,  almost  as  strongly 
as  in  the  case  of  Mahomet  with  the  Koran  in  one  hand 
and  the  sword  in  the  other. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  Emperor's  youth  to  show  the 
existence  of  deeply  religious  conviction,  but  as  soon  as  he 
mounted  the  throne,  and  all  through  the  reign  up  to  the 
close  of  the  century,  indeed  some  years  beyond  it,  his 
speeches,  especially  when  he  was  addressing  his  soldiery, 
were  filled  with  expressions  of  religious  fervour.  "  Von 
Gotten  Gnaden,"  he  writes  as  a  preface  for  a  Leipzig  pub- 
lication appearing  on  January  i,  1900,  "  is  the  King ; 
therefore  to  God  alone  is  he  responsible.  He  must 
choose  his  way  and  conduct  himself  solely  from  this 
standpoint.  This  fearfully  heavy  responsibility  which 
the  King  bears  for  his  folk  gives  him  a  claim  on  the  faith- 
ful co-operation  of  his  subjects.  Accordingly,  every  man 
among  the  people  must  be  thoroughly  persuaded  that  he 
is,  along  with  the  King,  responsible  for  the  general  wel- 
fare." It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  Cromwell  and 
the  Emperor  are  alike  in  being  the  founders  of  the  great 
war  navies  of  their  respective  countries. 

On  the  date  mentioned  (New  Year's  Day),  in  the  Berlin 
arsenal  when  consecrating  some  flags,  he  addressed  the 
garrison  on  the  turn  of  the  year  :  "  The  first  day  of  the 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  191 

new  century  finds  our  army,  that  is  our  folk  in  arms, 
gathered  round  its  standards,  kneeling  before  the  Lord 
of  Hosts — and  certainly  if  anyone  has  reason  to  bend  the 
knee  before  God,  it  is  our  army." 

"  A  glance  at  our  standards,"  the  Emperor  continued, 
"  is  sufficient  explanation,  for  they  incorporate  our 
history.  What  was  the  state  of  our  army  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century  ?  The  glorious  army  of  Frederick  the 
Great  had  gone  to  sleep  on  its  laurels,  ossified  in  pipeclay 
details,  led  by  old,  incapable  generals,  its  officers  shy  of 
work,  sunk  in  luxury,  good  living,  and  foolish  self-satis- 
faction. In  a  word,  the  army  was  no  longer  not  only 
not  equal  to  its  task,  but  had  forgotten  it.  Heavy  was  the 
punishment  of  Heaven,  which  overtook  it  and  our  folk. 
They  were  flung  into  the  dust,  Frederick's  glory  faded, 
the  standards  were  cast  down.  In  seven  years  of  painful 
servitude  God  taught  our  folk  to  bethink  itself  of  itself, 
and  under  the  pressure  of  the  feet  of  an  arrogant  usurper 
(Napoleon)  was  born  the  thought  that  it  is  the  highest 
honour  to  devote  in  arms  one's  life  and  property  to  the 
Fatherland — the  thought,  in  short,  of  universal  con- 
scription." 

The  word  for  conscription,  it  may  be  here  remarked, 
is  in  German  Wehrpflicht,  the  duty  of  defence.  To  most 
people  in  England  it  means  simply  "  compulsory  mili- 
tary service."  It  is  important  to  note  the  difference,  as 
it  explains  the  German  national  idea,  and  the  Emperor's 
idea,  that  all  military  and  naval  forces  are  primarily  for 
defence,  not  offence.  This  is,  indeed,  equally  true  of  the 
British,  or  perhaps  any  other,  army  and  navy ;  but  how 
many  Englishmen,  when  they  think  of  Germany,  can  get 
the  idea  into  the  foreground  of  their  thoughts  or  accustom 
themselves  to  it  ? 

However,  we  have  not  yet  done  with  the  Emperor's 
baffling  character.  There  was  a  third  element  that  now 
developed  in  it — the  modern,  the  twentieth-century,  the 


192  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

American,  the  Rockefeller  element.  It  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  his  Weltpolitik,  as  his  Weltpolitik  is  with  his 
foreign  policy  in  general — indeed  one  might  say  his 
Weltpolitik  is  his  foreign  policy — a  policy  of  economic 
expansion,  with  a  desperate  apprehension  of  losing  any 
of  the  Empire's  property,  and  a  determination  to  have  a 
voice  in  the  matter  when  there  is  any  loose  property 
anywhere  in  the  world  to  be  disposed  of.  To  the 
Hebraic  element  and  the  warrior  element  (an  entirely 
un-Christlike  combination,  as  the  Emperor  must  be 
aware)  there  now  began  to  be  added  the  mercantile,  the 
modern,  the  American  element — the  interest  in  all  the 
concerns  of  national  material  prosperity,  in  the  national 
accumulation  of  wealth,  the  interest  in  inventions,  in  com- 
mercial science,  in  labour-saving  machinery,  the  effort  to 
win  American  favour,  to  facilitate  intercourse  and  estab- 
lish close  and  profitable  relations  with  that  wealthy  land 
and  people. 

We  know  that  the  Emperor  has  English  blood  in  him, 
greatly  admires  England,  and  is  immensely  proud  of 
being  a  British  admiral.  We  have  seen  him  exhibiting 
traits  of  character  that  remind  one  of  Lohengrin  or 
Tancred.  He  has  played  many  parts  in  the  spirit  of  a 
Hebrew  prophet  and  patriarch,  of  a  Frederick  the  Great, 
a  Cromwell,  a  Nelson,  a  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Preacher, 
teacher,  soldier,  sailor,  he  has  been  all  four,  now  at  one 
moment,  now  at  another.  We  shall  find  him  anon  as 
art  and  dramatic  critic,  to  end — so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned with  him — as  farmer.  Is  it  any  wonder  if  such  a 
man,  mediaeval  in  his  nature  and  modern  in  his  character, 
defies  clear  and  definite  portrayal  by  his  contemporaries  ? 

Taking  the  year  1900  as  the  first  year  of  the  new 
century,  not  as  some  calculators,  and  the  Emperor 
among  them,  take  it,  as  the  last  year  of  the  old,  the 
twentieth  century  may  be  said  to  have  opened  with 
a  dramatic  historical  episode  in  which  the  Emperor 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  193 

and  his  Empire  took  very  prominent  parts — the  Boxer 
movement. 

Little  notice  has  been  taken  in  our  account  of  Ger- 
many's spacious  days  of  her  relations  to  China  and  the 
Far  East  generally.  They  were,  nevertheless,  all  through 
that  period  intimately  connected  with  her  expansion  or 
dreams  of  expansion.  About  1890  the  Flowery  Land 
awoke  to  the  benefits  of  European  civilization  and  in 
particular  of  European  ingenuity  ;  and  in  1891,  for  the 
first  time  in  Chinese  history,  foreign  diplomatists  were 
granted  the  privilege  of  an  annual  reception  at  the 
Chinese  Court.  So  exclusive  was  the  Manchu  dynasty — 
the  Hohenzollerns  of  China  in  point  of  antiquity  ;  yet 
not  a  score  of  years  later  the  Manchu  monarchy  had 
been  quietly  removed  from  its  five-thousand-year-old 
throne,  and  China,  apparently  the  most  conservative 
and  monarchical  people  on  earth,  proclaimed  itself  a 
republic — a  regular  modern  republic  ! — an  operation 
that  among  peoples  claiming  infinite  superiority  to  the 
Chinese  would  have  cost  thousands  of  lives  and  a  vast 
expenditure  of  money. 

Naturally,  once  China  showed  a  willingness  to  abandon 
its  axenic  attitude  towards  foreign  devils  and  all  things 
foreign-devilish,  the  European  Powers  turned  their  eyes 
and  energies  towards  her,  and  a  strenuous  commercial 
and  diplomatic  race  after  prospective  concessions  for 
railways,  mines,  and  undertakings  of  all  kinds  began. 
Each  Power  feared  that  China  would  be  gobbled  up 
by  a  rival,  or  that  at  least  a  partition  of  the  vast  Chinese 
Empire  was  at  hand.  Consequently,  when  China  was 
beaten  in  her  war  with  Japan,  and  made  the  unfavourable 
treaty  of  Shimonoseki,  the  European  Powers  were  ready 
to  appear  as  helpers  in  time  of  need.  Russia,  Germany, 
and  France  got  the  Shimonoseki  Treaty  altered,  and  the 
Liaotung  Peninsula  with  Port  Arthur  given  back,  and 
in  return  Russia  acquired  the  right  to  build  a  railway 


194  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

through  Manchuria  (the  first  step  towards  "  penetration  " 
and  occupation),  French  engineers  obtained  several 
valuable  mining  and  railway  concessions,  and  Germany 
got  certain  privileges  in  Hankow  and  Tientsin. 

Meantime  the  old,  deeply-rooted  hatred  of  the  foreign 
devil,  the  European,  was  spreading  among  the  population, 
which  was  still,  in  the  mass,  conservative.  Missionaries 
were  murdered,  and  among  them,  in  1897,  ^wo  German 
priests.  Germany  demanded  compensation,  and  in 
default  sent  a  cruiser  squadron  to  Kiautschau  Bay. 
Russia  immediately  hurried  a  fleet  to  Port  Arthur  and 
obtained  from  China  a  lease  of  that  port  for  twenty-five 
years.  England  and  France  now  put  in  a  claim  for 
their  share  of  the  good  things  going.  England  obtained 
Wei-hai-Wei,  France  a  lease  of  Kwang-tschau  and 
Hainan.  China  was  evidently  throwing  herself  into 
the  arms  of  Europe,  when,  in  1898,  the  Dowager  Empress 
took  the  government  out  of  the  hands  of  the  young 
Emperor  and  a  period  of  reaction  set  in.  The  appear- 
ance of  Italy  with  a  demand  for  a  lease  of  the  San-mun 
Bay  in  1899  brought  the  Chinese  anti-foreign  movement 
to  a  head,  and  the  Boxer  conspiracy  grew  to  great 
dimensions. 

The  movement  was  caused  not  merely  by  religious 
and  race  fanaticism,  but  by  the  popular  fear  that  the 
new  European  era  would  change  the  economic  life 
of  China  and  deprive  millions  of  Chinese  of  their  wonted 
means  of  livelihood.  The  Dowager  Empress  and  a 
number  of  Chinese  princes  now  joined  it.  Massacres 
soon  became  the  order  of  the  day,  and  it  is  calculated 
that  in  the  spring  of  1900  alone  more  than  30,000 
Christians  were  barbarously  done  to  death.  Among 
the  victims  were  reckoned  118  English,  79  Americans, 
25  French,  and  40  of  other  nationalities.  The  Ambas- 
sadors and  Ministers  of  all  nations,  conscious  of  their 
danger,  applied  to  the  Tsungli  Yamen  (Foreign  Office), 


THE   NEW   CENTURY  195 

demanding  that  the  Imperial  Government  should  crush 
the  Boxer  movement.  The  Government  took  no  steps, 
the  diplomatists  were  beleaguered  in  their  embassies, 
and  were  only  saved  by  friendly  police  from  being 
murdered. 

This,  however,  was  but  a  temporary  respite,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  bring  marines  from  the  foreign 
ships  of  war  lying  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-ho  River 
just  out  of  range  of  the  formidable  Taku  Forts.  These 
troops,  2,000  in  all,  were  led  by  Admiral  Seymour. 
They  tried  to  reach  Pekin,  but  failed  owing  to  the 
destruction  of  the  railway,  and  retired  to  Tientsin,  from 
whence,  however,  on  June  i6th,  a  detachment  set  out 
to  capture  the  Taku  Forts.  The  capture  was  effected, 
the  German  gunboat  lltis,  under  Captain  Lans,  playing 
a  conspicuously  brave  part.  Tientsin  was  now  in 
danger  from  the  Boxer  bands,  but  was  relieved  by  a 
mixed  detachment  of  Russians  and  Germans  under 
General  Stoessel,  the  subsequent  defender  of  Port 
Arthur. 

The  alarm  meantime  at  Pekin  was  intense.  The 
Chinese  Government,  throwing  off  all  disguise,  ordered 
the  diplomatists  to  leave  the  city.  They  refused,  knowing 
that  to  leave  the  shelter  of  the  embassies  meant  torture 
and  death.  One  of  them,  however,  the  German  Minister, 
Freiherr  von  Ketteler,  ventured  from  his  Legation  and 
was  killed  in  broad  daylight  on  his  way  to  the  Chinese 
Foreign  Office.  Only  one  of  the  Minister's  party  escaped, 
to  stagger,  hacked  and  bloody,  into  the  British  Legation 
with  the  news.  This  Legation,  as  the  strongest  building 
in  the  quarter,  became  the  refuge  of  the  entire  diplo- 
matic corps,  with  their  wives,  children,  and  servants. 
It  was  straightway  invested  and  bombarded  by  the 
Boxers,  and  as  the  days  and  weeks  went  on  the  other 
Legation  buildings  were  burned,  and  the  refugees  in  the 
British  Legation  had  to  look  death  at  all  hours  in  the  face. 


196          WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

The  murder  of  von  Ketteler  excited  anger  and  horror 
throughout  the  world,  and  in  no  breast,  naturally,  to 
a  stronger  degree  than  in  that  of  the  German  Emperor. 
All  nations  hastened  to  send  troops  to  Pekin.  Japan 
was  first  on  the  scene  with  16,000  men  under  General 
Yamagutschi.  Russia  followed  next  with  15,000  under 
General  Lenewitch,  then  England  with  7,500  under 
General  Gaselee,  then  France  with  5,000  under  General 
Frey,  then  America  with  4,000  under  General  Chaffee, 
Germany  with  2,500  under  von  Hopfner,  Austria  and 
Italy  with  smaller  contingents — in  all  more  than  50,000 
men,  with  144  guns.  A  little  later  the  expeditionary 
corps  from  Germany,  19,000  strong,  under  General  von 
Lessel,  and  that  from  France,  10,000  strong,  arrived. 
At  the  suggestion,  it  is  said,  of  Russia,  and  by  agreement 
among  the  European  Powers,  united  by  a  common 
sympathy  and  in  face  of  a  common  danger,  the  German 
Field-Marshal,  Count  Waldersee,  was  appointed  to  the 
supreme  command  of  all  the  European  forces.  At 
the  same  time  naval  supports  were  hurried  by  all 
maritime  nations  to  the  scene,  and  within  a  short 
period  1 60  warships  and  30  torpedo  boats  were  assembled 
off  the  Chinese  coast. 

The  march  to  Pekin  and  the  relief  of  the  imprisoned 
Europeans  are  incidents  still  fresh  in  public  memory. 
In  the  crowded  British  Legation  fear  alternated  with 
hope,  and  hope  with  fear,  until,  on  the  forenoon  of 
August  i4th,  a  boy  ran  into  the  Legation  crying  that 
"black-faced  Europeans"  were  advancing  along  the 
royal  canal  in  the  direction  of  the  building.  In  a  few 
minutes  a  company  of  Sikh  cavalry,  part  of  some  Indian 
troops  diverted  on  their  way  to  Aden,  galloped  up,  all 
danger  was  over,  and  the  refugees  were  saved. 

The  Boxer  troubles  ended  on  May  13,  1901,  with 
the  signature  by  Li  Hung  Chang  in  the  name  of  the 
Emperor  of  China  of  a  treaty  of  peace,  the  main  con- 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  197 

ditions  of  which  were  the  payment  by  China  within 
thirty  years  of  a  war  indemnity  to  the  Powers  of  450 
million  taels  (.£66,000,000)  and  an  agreement  to  send  a 
mission  of  atonement  to  the  Courts  of  Germany  and 
Japan — for  among  the  foreign  victims  of  the  Boxers  in 
the  previous  year  had  been  the  Japanese  representative 
in  China,  Baron  Sugiyama. 

For  two  or  three  weeks  the  action  of  the  Emperor 
with  regard  to  the  Chinese  mission  of  atonement 
brought  him  into  universal  ridicule.  Prince  Chun,  a 
near  relative  of  the  Chinese  Emperor,  who  had  been 
appointed  to  conduct  the  mission,  reached  Basle  in 
September,  1901,  on  his  way  to  Berlin.  Here  he  lingered, 
and  it  soon  became  known  that  a  hitch  had  occurred 
in  his  relations  with  Germany.  It  then  transpired  that 
the  delay  was  caused  by  the  Emperor's  having  suddenly 
intimated  that  he  expected  Prince  Chun  to  make  thrice 
to  him,  as  he  sat  on  his  throne  at  Potsdam,  the  "  kotow  " 
as  practised  in  the  Court  of  China.  In  view  of  the 
surprise,  laughter,  and  criticism  of  Europe,  the  Emperor 
modified  his  demand  for  the  "  kotow  "  to  its  symbolic 
performance  by  three  deep  bows.  Prince  Chun  there- 
upon resumed  his  journey.  An  impressive,  if  theatrical, 
scene  was  prepared  in  the  New  Palace  at  Potsdam, 
where  the  Emperor,  seated  on  the  throne,  his  marshal's 
baton  in  his  hand,  and  flanked  by  Ministers  and  the 
officers  of  his  household,  received  the  bearer  of  China's 
expressions  of  regret.  Whatever  one  may  think  of  the 
scenic  effect  provided,  the  reply  the  Emperor  made  to 
Prince  Chun,  after  the  three  bows  arranged  upon  had 
been  made,  is  a  model  of  its  kind — general  not  personal, 
sorrowful  rather  than  angry,  warning  rather  than  re- 
proachful. The  Emperor  said — 

"  No  pleasing  nor  festive  cause,  no  mere  fulfilment  of  a  courtly 
duty,  has  brought  your  Imperial  Highness  to  me,  but  a  sad  and 
deeply  grave  occurrence.  My  Minister  to  the  Court  of  his  Majesty 


i98          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

the  Emperor  of  China,  Freiherr  von  Ketteler,  fell  in  the  Chinese 
capital  beneath  the  murderous  weapons  of  an  imperial  Chinese 
soldier,  who  acted  by  the  orders  of  a  superior,  an  unheard-of 
outrage  condemned  by  the  law  of  nations  and  the  moral  sense  of  all 
countries.  From  your  Imperial  Highness  I  have  now  heard  the 
expression  of  the  sincere  and  deep  regret  of  his  Imperial  Majesty 
the  Emperor  of  China  regarding  the  occurrence.  I  am  glad  to 
believe  that  your  Imperial  Highness's  royal  brother  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  crime  or  with  the  further  acts  of  violence  against 
inviolable  Ministers  and  peaceful  foreigners,  but  all  the  greater 
is  the  guilt  which  attaches  to  his  advisers  and  his  Government. 
Let  these  not  deceive  themselves  by  supposing  that  they  can  make 
atonement  and  receive  pardon  for  their  crime  through  this  mission 
alone,  and  not  through  their  subsequent  conduct  in  the  light  of  the 
prescriptions  of  international  law  and  the  moral  principles  of 
civilized  peoples.  If  his  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  China  hence- 
forward directs  the  government  of  his  great  Empire  in  the  spirit 
of  these  ordinances,  his  hope  that  -the  sad  consequences  of  the 
confusion  of  last  year  may  be  overcome,  and  permanent,  peaceful 
and  friendly  relations  between  Germany  and  China  may  exist  as 
before,  will  be  realized  to  the  benefit  of  both  peoples  and  the 
whole  of  civilized  humanity.  In  the  sincere  wish  that  it  may  be 
so,  I  welcome  your  Imperial  Highness." 

The  Emperor's  other  speeches  referring  to  the  Boxer 
movement  at  this  period  have  been  adversely  commented 
on  as  showing  him  in  the  light  of  a  cruel  and  blood- 
thirsty seeker  after  revenge.  This  is  an  unjust,  at  least 
a  hard,  judgment.  A  passage  in  his  address  at  Bremer- 
haven  to  the  expeditionary  force  when  setting  out  for 
China  is  the  main  proof  of  the  charge — in  which,  after 
referring  to  the  murder  of  von  Ketteler,  he  said  : 
"  You  know  well  you  will  have  to  fight  with  a  cunning, 
brave,  well-armed,  cruel  foe.  When  you  come  to  close 
quarters  with  him  remember — quarter  ("  Pardon  "  is  the 
German  word  the  Emperor  used)  must  not  be  given  : 
prisoners  must  not  be  taken  :  manage  your  weapons  so 
that  for  a  thousand  years  to  come  no  Chinaman  will 
dare  to  look  sideways  at  a  German.  Act  like  men."  It 
is  difficult,  of  course,  to  reconcile  such  an  address  with 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  199 

Christian  humanity  practised,  so  far  as  humanity  can 
be  practised,  in  modern  war,  but  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  Emperor  was  speaking  in  a  state  of  great 
excitement,  and  that,  according  to  Chancellor  Prince 
Billow's  statement  in  the  Reichstag  subsequently,  con- 
firmation of  the  news  of  the  murder  of  his  Minister  to 
China  had  only  reached  the  Emperor  ten  minutes  before 
he  delivered  the  speech. 

There  is  one  incident,  however,  though  not  a  very 
important  one,  in  connexion  with  the  troubles,  which 
may  fairly  be  made  a  matter  of  reproach  to  the  Emperor 
— the  seizure,  on  his  order,  of  the  ancient  astronomical 
instruments  at  Pekin  and  their  transference  to  Sans  Souci, 
in  Potsdam,  where  they  are  to  be  seen  to  the  present  day. 
The  troops  of  all  nations,  it  is  known,  looted  freely  at 
Pekin  ;  but  the  Emperor  might  have  spared  China  and 
his  own  fair  fame  the  indignity  of  such  public  vandalism. 

While  writing  of  China  it  may  not  be  superfluous  to 
add  that  the  Emperor's  foreign  policy  in  the  Orient 
cannot  be  expected  to  present  exactly  the  same  features, 
or  proceed  quite  along  the  same  lines,  as  his  foreign 
policy  in  Europe.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  Europe  is 
now  as  completely  parcelled  out  and  as  permanently 
settled  as  though  it  were  a  huge,  well-managed  estate. 
The  capacities  of  its  high  roads,  its  railways,  its  great 
rivers,  with  their  commercial  and  strategic  values  and 
relations  are  perfectly  ascertained  ;  and  the  knowledge, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  is  the  common  property  of  all 
important  Governments.  It  is  not  so,  or  not  nearly  to 
the  same  extent,  in  the  Orient.  In  Europe  there  is  little 
or  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  enterprises  that 
are  political  and  those  that  are  commercial,  or  in  re- 
cognizing where  they  are  both  ;  and  if  a  difficulty  should 
arise  it  can  be  arranged  by  diplomatic  conversations,  by 
a  conference  of  the  Powers  interested,  or  in  the  last  resort 
— short  of  war — by  arbitration.  This  is  not  so  simple  a 


200  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

matter  in  the  Orient,  where  conditions  are  at  once  old 
and  new,  where  interests  of  possibly  great  magnitude  are 
as  yet  undetermined  or  unappropriated,  where  possibly 
great  mineral  sources  are  undeveloped  and  the  capacities 
of  new  markets  unascertained ;  where,  in  short,  the 
decisive  factors  of  the  problem  are  undiscovered,  it  may 
be  unsuspected. 

In  such  cases  there  is  often  no  certain  and  readily 
recognizable  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two  kinds 
of  enterprise  ;  and  an  undertaking  that  may  present  all 
the  appearance  of  being  a  purely  commercial  scheme, 
and  be  solemnly  asseverated  to  be  such  by  the  Power  or 
Powers  promoting  it,  may  turn  out  on  closer  examination 
to  be  one  of  great  political  significance  and  incalculable 
political  consequence.  Of  such  enterprises  two  immedi- 
ately spring  to  mind,  the  Cape  to  Cairo  railway  and  the 
Baghdad  railway,  not  to  mention  a  score  of  problematic 
undertakings  in  other  parts  of  Africa  or  Asia.  It  will  be 
useful  to  keep  this  general  consideration  in  view  when 
forming  an  opinion  regarding  the  Emperor's  Oriental 
policy.  That  policy  is,  so  far,  almost  entirely  commercial. 
Long  ago  wars  used  to  be  made  for  the  sake  of  religion, 
then  for  the  sake  of  territory.  Now  they  are  made  for 
the  sake  of  new  markets. 

Yet  the  Far  East  is  changing  with  the  change  in  condi- 
tions everywhere  in  modern  times,  and  it  is  evident  that 
the  premises  for  any  conclusion  as  to  German  foreign 
policy  there  may,  at  any  given  moment,  be  subject  to 
modification.  Partly  owing  to  the  growth  of  Germany's 
European  influence,  and  to  the  increase  in  her  navy 
which  has  helped  her  to  it,  she  is  to  be  found  of  recent 
years  playing  a  role  in  the  Far  East  which  would  have 
been  unintelligible  to  the  German  of  the  last  generation. 
There  are  many  Germans  to-day,  as  in  Bismarck's  time, 
who  ridicule  the  notion  that  the  possibilities  of  trade  in 
Oriental  countries  justify  the  national  risk  now  run  for  it 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  201 

and  the  national  expenditure  now  made  upon  it  ;  but 
it  is  sometimes  forgotten  that,  apart  from  the  chance  of 
obtaining  concessions  for  the  building  of  railways,  for 
the  establishment  of  banks,  for  the  leasing  of  mines  and 
working  of  cotton  plantations,  there  is  a  large  German 
export  of  beads,  cloth,  and,  in  short,  of  hundreds  of 
articles  which  appeal  to  barbarian  or  only  semi-civilized 
tastes. 

Germany,  too,  looks  hopefully  forward  to  a  future  in 
which  she  will  be  supplied  with  the  raw  material  of  her 
manufactures  by  her  colonies,  or  failing  that  by  her 
subjects  trading  abroad  in  the  colonies  of  other  nations. 
This  is  one  of  the  main  objects  of  her  Weltpolitik.  As 
Prince  von  Biilow  said  :  "  The  time  has  passed  when  the 
German  left  the  earth  to  one  neighbour  and  the  sea  to 
another,  while  he  reserved  heaven,  where  pure  doctrines 
are  enthroned,  to  himself ;  "  and  again  :  "  We  don't  seek 
to  put  anybody  in  the  shade,  but  we  demand  our  place 
in  the  sun  ; "  and  the  idea  finds  technical  expression  in 
the  phrase  on  which  Germany  lays  so  much  stress,  the 
"  maintenance  of  the  open  door."  Her  policy  in  the  Far 
East,  as  in  Europe,  is  thus  on  the  whole  a  commercial 
one  ;  she  seeks  there  as  elsewhere  new  markets,  not  new 
territory.  Accordingly  she  supports  the  principle  of  the 
status  quo  in  China,  and  therefore  raised  no  objection  to 
the  Anglo-Japanese  Agreement  of  1902  which,  among 
other  objects,  secured  it. 

In  January,  1901,  the  Emperor  was  called  to  England 
by  the  sudden,  and,  as  it  was  to  prove,  fatal  illness  of  his 
grandmother,  Queen  Victoria.  His  journey  to  Osborne, 
where  he  arrived  just  in  time  to  be  recognized  by  the 
dying  Queen,  and  his  abandonment  of  the  idea,  impressive 
and  almost  sacred  to  a  Prussian  King  and  the  Prussian 
people,  of  being  present  on  his  birthday,  January  27th,  at 
the  bicentenary  celebration  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Prussian  Kingdom,  made  a  deep  and  sympathetic 


202  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

impression  on  the  people  of  England.  Usually  on  State 
occasions  the  Emperor  does  not  display  a  countenance 
of  good  humour,  or  indeed  of  any  sentiment  save  perhaps 
that  of  a  sense  of  dignity ;  but  on  the  occasion  in  ques- 
tion, as  he  rode  in  the  uniform  of  a  British  Field-Marshal 
beside  Edward  VII,  his  looks  were  those  of  genuine 
sorrow.  Public  sympathy  was  not  lessened  when  it 
became  known  that  he  had  mentioned  the  pride  he  felt 
in  being  privileged  to  wear  the  uniform  of  two  such 
soldiers  of  renown  as  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Lord 
Roberts  ;  and  added  that  the  privilege  would  be  highly 
estimated  by  the  whole  German  army.  It  was  a  chivalrous 
remark,  the  offspring  of  a  chivalrous  disposition. 

The  Emperor  had  hardly  returned  to  Germany  when, 
on  February  6th,  the  only  attack  ever  made  on  his  per- 
son occurred  in  Bremen.  He  had  been  at  a  banquet 
in  the  town  hall,  and  was  being  driven  through  the 
illuminated  streets  to  the  railway  station  to  return  to 
Berlin,  when  a  half-witted  locksmith's  apprentice  of  nine- 
teen, Dietrich  Weiland  by  name,  flung  a  piece  of  railway 
iron  at  him  with  such  good  aim  that  it  struck  him  on  the 
face  immediately  under  the  right  eye,  inflicting  a  deep 
and  nasty,  but  not  dangerous  wound.  The  Emperor 
proceeded  with  his  journey,  the  doctors  attending  to  his 
injury  in  the  train,  and  in  a  few  weeks  he  was  well 
again.  Weiland  was  sent  to  a  criminal  lunatic  asylum. 
The  attempt  had,  apparently,  nothing  to  do  with 
Anarchism  or  Nihilism  or  the  Social  Democracy.  When 
the  Emperor  alluded  to  it  afterwards  in  his  speech  to  the 
Diet,  he  referred  it  to  a  general  diminution  of  respect  for 
authority. 

"  Respect  for  authority,"  he  said  to  the  Diet,  "  is  want- 
ing. In  this  regard  all  classes  of  the  population  are  to 
blame.  Particular  interests  are  looked  to,  not  the  general 
well-being  of  the  folk.  Criticism  of  the  measures  of  the 
Government  and  Throne  takes  the  coarsest  and  most 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  203 

injurious  forms — and  hence  the  errors  and  demoralization 
t)f  our  youth.  Parliament  must  help  here,  and  a  change 
must  be  made,  beginning  with  the  schools."  It  was 
natural  enough  that  a  few  days  after,  addressing  the 
Alexander  Regiment  of  Guards,  who  were  taking  up 
quarters  in  a  new  barracks  near  the  palace  in  Berlin, 
he  should  tell  them  the  barracks  were  like  a  citadel  to  the 
palace,  and  that,  as  a  sort  of  imperial  bodyguard,  the 
regiment  "  must  be  ready,  day  and  night  as  once  before  " 
— he  was  referring  to  the  "  March  Days  " — "  to  meet  any 
attack  by  the  citizens  on  the  Emperor." 

At  Bonn  in  April  the  Emperor  attended  the  matricula- 
tion (immatriculation,  the  Germans  call  it)  of  his  eldest 
son,  the  Crown  Prince,  at  the  university.  He  was  in 
civil  dress,  one  of  the  rare  public  occasions  during  the 
reign  when  he  has  not  been  in  uniform,  but  this  did 
not  prevent  him  delivering  a  martial  address  to  the 
Borussians.  "  I  hope  arid  expect  from  the  younger 
generation,"  he  said  to  the  students,  "  that  they  will  put 
me  in  a  position  to  maintain  our  German  Fatherland  in 
its  close  and  strong  boundaries  and  in  the  congeries  of 
German  races — doing  to  no  one  favour  and  to  no  one 
harm.  If,  however,  anyone  should  touch  us  too  nearly, 
then  I  will  call  upon  you  and  I  expect  you  won't  leave 
your  Emperor  sitting."  A  great  shout  of  "Bravo!" 
went  up  when  the  Emperor  ceased,  and  the  students 
doubtless  all  thought  what  a  fine  thing  it  would  be  if  he 
would  only  lead  them  straightway  against  those  cheeky 
Englanders. 

At  the  end  of  June,  on  board  the  Hamburg-American 
pleasure-steamer  Princess  Victoria  Luise,  the  Emperor 
pronounced  the  famous  sentence — "  Our  future  lies  on  the 
water."  The  year  before  he  had  said  something  like  it, 
and  it  is  worth  quoting  as  the  Emperor's  first  explicit 
allusion  to  Weltpolitik.  "  Strongly,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  dashes  the  beat  of  ocean  at  the  doors  of  our  people  and 


204  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

compels  it  to  preservation  of  its  place  in  the  world,  in  a 
word,  to  Weltpolitik.  The  ocean  is  indispensable  for 
Germany's  greatness.  The  ocean  testifies  that  on  it  and 
far  beyond  it  no  important  decision  will  be  taken  without 
Germany  and  the  German  Emperor." 

His  words  on  the  present  occasion  were  :  "My  entire 
task  for  the  future  will  be  to  see  that  the  undertakings  of 
which  the  foundations  have  been  laid  may  develop 
quietly  and  surely.  We  have,  though  as  yet  without  the 
fleet  as  it  should  be,  achieved  our  place  in  the  sun.  It 
will  now  be  my  task  to  hold  this  place  unquestioned,  so 
that  its  rays  may  act  favourably  on  trade  and  industry 
and  agriculture  at  home  inside,  and  on  our  sail-sports  on 
the  coast — for  our  future  lies  on  the  water.  The  more 
Germans  go  on  the  sea — whether  travelling  or  in  the 
service  of  the  State — the  better.  When  the  German  has 
once  learned  to  look  abroad  and  afar  he  will  lose  that 
'  hang '  towards  the  petty,  the  trivial,  which  now  so  often 
seizes  him  in  daily  life."  And  he  closed  :  "  We  must 
now  go  out  in  search  of  new  spots  where  we  can  drive  in 
nails  on  which  to  hang  our  armour." 

Early  in  August  the  Emperor  was  called  to  the  death- 
bed of  his  mother,  the  Empress  Frederick,  at  her  castle 
in  Cronberg.  She  died  on  the  afternoon  of  her  son's 
arrival,  on  August  5th.  The  Emperor  ordered  mourning 
throughout  the  Empire  for  six  weeks,  and  forbade  all 
"  public  music,  entertainments,  theatrical  or  otherwise " 
until  after  the  funeral.  The  Empress  was  buried  in  the 
mausoleum  attached  to  the  Friedenskirche  in  Potsdam 
on  the  i3th  of  the  month. 

The  delivery  of  a  famous  speech  on  art  by  the 
Emperor  in  December  brings  the  chronicle  of  1901  to  a 
close,  but  perhaps  it  will  not  displease  the  reader  if  a  new 
chapter  is  opened  for  the  purpose  of  quoting  it  and 
of  considering  the  Emperor  in  what  is  a  traditional 
Hohenzollern  relationship. 


X 

THE   EMPEROR  AND  THE   ARTS 

ART  is  a  favourite  subject  of  conversation  on  the 
Continent,  where  it  is  more  popularly  discussed 
than  in  England  and  where  authorities  of  all 
kinds  are  more  alive  to  its  educative  capabilities.  It  is 
eminently  "  safe  "  ground,  does  not  savour  of  gossip,  and 
no  one  need  leave  the  field  of  discussion  with  the  feeling 
that  he  has  been  driven  from  it.  Hence  it  is  the  salvation 
of  diplomatists  who  are  apprehensive  of  committing  their 
Governments  or  themselves  when  mixing  in  general 
society,  and  it  doubtless  does  good  service  for  the 
Emperor  also  upon  occasion.  Indeed  it  is  a  topic  on 
which  he  speaks  willingly  and  well. 

Unfortunately  for  precision  of  thought  and  speech, 
though  useful  for  the  man  in  the  street,  the  word  "  art " 
has  been  pressed  into  the  service  of  metaphor  more  than 
almost  any  other  word  in  language.  We  are  told  in  turn 
that  everything  is  an  art — hair-dressing,  salad-dressing  (a 
different  kind),  lying,  flying,  dying.  The  Germans  are 
trying  to  make  an  art  of  life.  Whistler  wrote  about  the 
"  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies."  One  hears  of  "  artful 
hussies"  and  "artful  dodgers."  People  are  described 
as  "  artful "  in  the  small  diplomacies  of  intercourse. 
Jugglers,  acrobats,  sword-swallowers,  "  supers "  at  the 
theatre,  the  men  who  play  the  elephant  in  the  panto- 
mime would  all  be  mortified  if  they  were  not  addressed 
as  "artists."  In  short,  everything  may  be  called  an  art. 


2o6  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

But  what,  truly,  is  art  ?  The  question  is  as  hard  to 
answer  satisfactorily  as  the  questions  what  is  truth  or 
what  is  beauty  ?  The  notion  "  art  "  usually  occurs  to  the 
mind  as  contrasted  with  the  notion  "  nature  "  ;  the  word 
is  derived  from  the  Sanskrit  root  ar,  to  plough,  to  make, 
to  do  ;  and  accordingly  art  may  be  taken  to  be  something 
made  by  man,  as  contrasted  with  something  made,  or 
grown,  or  given  by  God.  How  art  came  into  existence 
it  is  of  course  impossible  to  do  more  than  conjecture. 
The  necessities  of  primitive  man  may  have  stimulated  his 
inventive  powers  into  originating  and  developing  the 
useful  arts  for  his  physical  comfort  and  convenience; 
and  his  desire  for  recreation  after  labour,  or  the  mere 
ennui  of  idleness,  may  have  urged  the  same  powers  into 
originating  and  developing  the  fine  and  plastic  arts  for 
the  entertainment  of  his  mind.  Or,  lastly,  if  no  better 
reason  can  be  found,  and  though  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
laid  it  down  that  all  models  of  perfection  in  art  must 
be  sought  for  on  the  earth,  it  may  be  that  seeing  and 
feeling  instinctively  the  glory  and  beauty  of  the  Crea- 
tion, mankind  began  gradually,  as  its  intelligence  im- 
proved, to  burn  with  a  longing  to  imitate,  reproduce, 
and  represent  them. 

However  art  arose,  it  seems  true  to  say,  as  a  German 
writer  has  well  said,  that  when  a  work  of  art,  whether  a 
poem  or  a  picture  or  a  statue,  causes  in  us  the  thought 
that  so,  and  in  no  other  way,  would  we  ourselves  have  ex- 
pressed the  idea,  had  we  the  talent,  then  we  may  conclude 
that  true  art  is  speaking  to  us,  whatever  the  idea  to  be  ex- 
pressed may  be.  Everything  demands  thought,  but  our 
thoughts  are  an  unruly  folk,  which  never  keep  long  on 
the  same  straight  road,  and  love  to  wander  off  to  left  and 
right,  here  finding  something  new  and  there  throwing 
away  something  old.  The  artist,  when  he  conceives  a 
plan,  has  to  fight  with  the  host  of  his  thoughts  and  find 
a  way  through  them.  They  often  threaten  to  divert  him 


2O7 

from  it,  but  on  the  other  hand  they  often  lead  him  to  his 
goal  by  novel  paths  along  which  he  finds  much  that  is 
new  and  valuable. 

This  is  a  doctrine  that,  sensible  though  it  is,  would 
hardly  be  subscribed  to  by  the  Emperor,  to  whom  no 
new  movement  in  art  strongly  appeals,  and  who  thinks 
that  such  movements,  unless  founded  on  the  old  classical 
school,  the  Greek  and  Roman  school  of  beauty,  ought,  in 
the  public  interest,  to  be  discouraged.  However,  let  him 
speak  for  himself.  He  set  forth  his  art  creed  in  a 
speech  which  he  delivered  on  December  18,  1901,  to 
the  sculptors  who  had  executed  the  Hohenzollern  statues 
in  the  famous  Siegesallee  at  Berlin,  and  which  ran 
substantially  as  follows  : — 

"  I  gladly  seize  the  occasion,  first  of  all,  to  express  my  congratula- 
tions and  then  my  thanks  for  the  manner  in  which  you  have  assisted 
me  to  carry  out  my  original  plan.  The  preparation  of  the  plan  for 
the  Siegesallee  has  occupied  many  years,  and  the  learned  historio- 
grapher of  my  House,  Professor  Dr.  Poser,  is  the  man  who  put  me 
in  a  position  to  set  the  artists  clear  and  intelligible  tasks.  Once  the 
historic  basis  was  found  the  work  could  be  proceeded  with,  and 
when  the  personalities  of  the  princes  were  established  it  was 
possible  to  ascertain  those  who  had  been  their  most  important 
helpers.  In  this  manner  the  groups  originated  and,  to  a  certain 
extent,  conditioned  by  their  history,  the  forms  of  them  came  into 
existence. 

"  The  next  most  difficult  question  was — Was  it  possible,  as  I  hoped 
it  was,  to  find  in  Berlin  so  many  artists  as  would  be  able  to  work 
together  harmoniously  to  realize  the  programme  ? 

"As  I  came  to  consider  the  question,  I  had  in  view  to  show 
the  world  that  the  most  favourable  condition  for  the  successful 
achievement  of  the  work  was  not  the  appointment  of  an  art  com- 
mission and  the  establishment  of  prize  competitions,  but  that  in 
accord  with  ancient  custom,  as  in  the  classical  period,  and  later 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  was  the  case,  it  lay  in  the  direct  intercourse 
of  the  employer  with  the  artists. 

I  am  therefore  especially  obliged  to  Professor  Reinhold  Begas 
for  having  assured  me,  when  I  applied  to  him,  that  there  was  abso- 
lutely no  doubt  there  could  be  found  in  Berlin  a  sufficiency  of 


2o8  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

artists  to  carry  out  the  idea  ;  and  with  his  help,  and  in  consequence 
of  the  acquaintances  I  have  made  by  visiting  exhibitions  and 
studios  in  Berlin,  I  succeeded  in  getting  together  a  staff,  the 
majority  of  whom  I  see  around  me,  with  whom  to  approach 
the  task. 

"  I  think  you  will  not  refuse  me  the  testimony  that,  in  respect  of 
the  programme  I  drew  up  I  have  made  the  treatment  of  it  as  easy 
as  possible,  that  while  I  ordered  and  defined  the  work  I  gave  you 
an  absolute  freedom  not  only  in  the  combination  and  composition, 
but  precisely  the  freedom  to  put  into  it  that  from  himself  which 
every  artist  must  if  he  is  to  give  the  work  the  stamp  of  his  own  indivi- 
duality, since  every  work  of  art  contains  in  itself  something  of  the 
individual  character  of  the  artist.  I  believe  that  this  experiment, 
if  I  may  so  call  it,  as  made  in  the  Siegesallee,  has  succeeded. 

"  ...  I  have  never  interfered  with  details,  but  have  contented 
myself  with  simply  giving  the  direction,  the  impulse. 

"But  to-day  the  thought  that  Berlin  stands  there  before  the 
whole  world  with  a  guild  of  artists  able  to  carry  out  so  magnificent 
a  project  fills  me  with  satisfaction  and  pride.  It  shows  that  the 
Berlin  school  of  art  stands  on  a  height  which  could  hardly  have 
been  more  splendid  in  the  time  of  the  Renaissance. 

"  Here,  too,  one  can  draw  a  parallel  between  the  great  artistic 
achievements  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Italians — that,  namely, 
the  head  of  the  State,  an  art-loving  prince,  who  offered  their  tasks 
to  the  artists  also  found  the  master  round  whom  a  school  of  artists 
could  gather. 

"  How  is  it,  generally  speaking,  with  art  in  the  world  ?  It  takes 
its  models,  supplies  itself  from  the  great  sources  of  Mother  Nature, 
who,  spite  of  her  apparently  unfettered,  limitless  freedom,  still 
moves  according  to  eternal  laws  which  the  Creator  ordained  for 
himself  and  which  cannot  be  passed  or  violated  without  danger  to 
the  development  of  the  world. 

"  Even  so  it  is  in  art ;  and  at  the  sight  of  the  beautiful  remains  of 
old  classical  times  comes  again  over  one  the  feeling  that  here  too 
reigns  an  eternal  law  that  is  always  true  to  itself,  the  law  of  beauty 
and  harmony,  of  the  aesthetic.  This  law  is  given  expression  to  by 
the  ancients  in  so  surprising  and  overpowering  a  fashion,  in  so 
thoroughly  complete  a  form  that  we,  with  all  our  modern  sensibi- 
lities and  with  all  our  power,  are  still  proud,  when  we  have  done 
any  specially  fine  piece  of  work,  to  hear  that  it  is  almost  as  good 
as  it  was  made  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 

"  But  only  almost !  Under  this  impression  I  would  earnestly  ask 
you  to  lay  it  to  heart  that  sculpture  still  remains  untainted  by 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     209 

so-called  modern  tendencies  and  currents — still  stands  high  and 
chastely  there  !  Keep  her  so,  don't  let  yourselves  be  misled  by 
human  criticism  or  any  wind  of  doctrine  to  abandon  the  principles 
on  which  she  has  been  built  up. 

"  An  art  which  transgresses  the  laws  and  limits  I  have  indicated  is 
art  no  more.  It  is  factory  work,  handicraft,  and  that  is  a  thing  art 
should  never  be.  Under  the  often  misused  word  "  freedom  "  and 
her  flag  one  falls  too  readily  into  boundlessness,  unrestraint,  self- 
exaggeration.  For  whoever  cuts  loose  from  the  law  of  beauty,  and 
the  feeling  for  the  aesthetic  and  harmonious,  which  every  human 
breast  feels,  whether  he  can  express  it  or  not,  and  in  his  thought 
makes  his  chief  object  some  special  direction,  some  specific  solu- 
tion of  more  technical  tasks,  that  man  defiles  art's  first  sources. 

"  Yet  again.  Art  should  help  to  exercise  an  educative  influence 
on  the  people.  She  should  offer  the  lower  classes,  after  the  hard 
work  of  the  day,  the  possibility  of  refreshing  themselves  by  regard- 
ing what  is  ideal.  To  us  Germans  great  ideals  have  become 
permanent  possessions,  whereas  to  other  peoples  they  have  been 
more  or  less  lost.  Only  the  German  people  remain  called  to  preserve 
these  great  ideas,  to  cultivate  and  continue  them.  And  among  these 
ideals  is  this,  that  we  afford  the  possibility  to  the  working  classes 
to  elevate  themselves  by  beauty,  and  by  beauty  to  enable  them 
to  abstract  themselves  and  rise  above  the  thoughts  they  otherwise 
would  have. 

"  When  Art,  as  now  often  occurs,  does  nothing  more  than  repre- 
sent misery  as  still  more  unlovely  than  it  is  already,  by  so  doing 
she  sins  against  the  German  people.  The  cultivation  of  the  ideal 
is  at  the  same  time  the  greatest  work  of  culture,  and  if  we  wish 
to  be  and  remain  an  example  in  this  to  other  nations  the  whole 
people  must  work  together  to  that  end  ;  if  Culture  is  to  fulfil 
her  task  she  must  penetrate  to  the  lowest  classes  of  society.  That 
she  can  only  do  when  art  comes  into  play,  when  she  raises  up, 
instead  of  descending  into  the  gutter. 

"  As  ruler  of  the  country  I  often  find  it  extremly  bitter  that  art, 
through  its  masters,  does  not  with  sufficient  energy  oppose  such 
tendencies.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  fail  to  perceive  that  many 
an  aspiring  character  is  to  be  found  among  the  partisans  of  these 
tendencies,  who  are  perhaps  filled  with  the  best  intentions  but 
who  are  on  the  wrong  path.  The  true  artist  needs  no  advertise- 
ment, no  press,  no  patronage.  I  do  not  believe  that  your  great 
protagonists  in  the  domain  of  science,  either  in  ancient  Greece 
or  in  Italy  or  ia  the  Renaissance  period  ever  had  recourse  to  a 
reclame  such  as  nowadays  is  often  made  in  the  press  in  order  to 
p 


210  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

bring  their  ideas  into  prominence,  but  worked  as  God  inspired  them 
and  let  others  do  the  talking. 

"  And  so  must  an  honest,  proper  artist  act.  The  art  which 
descends  to  reclame  is  no  art  be  it  lauded  a  hundred  or  a  thousand- 
fold. A  feeling  for  what  is  beautiful  or  ugly  has  every  one,  be  he 
ever  so  simple,  and  to  educate  this  feeling  in  the  people  I  require 
all  of  you.  That  in  the  Siegesallee  you  have  done  a  piece  of 
such  work,  I  have  specially  to  thank  you. 

"  This  I  can  even  now  tell  you — the  impression  which  the  Sieges- 
allee has  made  on  the  foreigner  is  quite  an  overpowering  one ; 
everywhere  respect  for  German  sculpture  is  making  itself  perceiv- 
able. May  you  always  remain  on  these  heights,  may  such  masters 
stand  by  my  sons  and  sons'  sons,  should  they  ever  come  into  exist- 
ence !  Then,  I  am  convinced,  will  our  people  be  in  a  position 
to  love  the  beautiful  and  honour  lofty  ideals." 

At  the  Berlin  Art  Museum  next  year,  after  praising 
the  devotion  of  his  parents  to  art,  and  especially  of 
his  mother,  "  a  nature,"  he  said,  "  about  which  poesy 
breathed,"  he  continued  : — 

"  The  son  of  both  stands  before  you  as  their  heir 
and  executor  :  and  so  I  regard  it  as  my  task,  according 
to  the  intention  of  my  parents,  to  hold  my  hand  over 
my  German  people  and  its  growing  generation,  to  foster 
the  love  of  beauty  in  them,  and  to  develop  art  in  them  ; 
but  only  along  the  lines  and  within  the  bounds  drawn 
strictly  by  the  feelings  in  mankind  for  beauty  and 
harmony." 

The  Emperor's  speech  to  the  sculptors,  if  it  contains 
some  questionable  statements,  is  a  thoughtful  address 
by  one  who  is  himself  an  artist,  though  not  perhaps 
an  artist  of  a  high  class.  His  artistic  endowments, 
transmitted  from  his  parents,  have  been  already  indi- 
cated. In  reference  to  them  he  said  to  the  official 
conducting  him  over  the  Marienburg  in  later  years, 
when  the  official  expressed  surprise  at  the  Emperor's 
art-knowledge  : — 

"  There  is  nothing  wonderful   in   it.     I  was  brought 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE   ARTS     211 

up  in  an  artistic  atmosphere.  My  mother  was  an  artist, 
and  from  my  earliest  youth  I  have  been  surrounded 
by  beautiful  things.  Art  is  my  friend  and  my  recrea- 
tion." The  highest  praise  of  a  work  of  art  is  to  say  of 
it  that  it  pleased,  or  would  have  pleased,  his  mother. 
Of  her  he  said,  "  Every  thought  she  had  was  art,  and 
to  her  everything,  however  simple,  which  was  meant  for 
the  use  of  life,  was  penetrated  with  beauty."  When 
giving  his  sanction  to  a  plan,  a  park,  a  statue  or  a 
building  he  always  thinks — "  Would  it  have  pleased 
my  parents — what  would  they  have  said  about  it  ? " 
The  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  and  the  Kaiser  Friedrich 
Memorial  Church,  both  in  Berlin,  testify  to  the  Emperor's 
gratitude  to  his  parents  for  their  artistic  legacy. 

He  went,  as  we  have  seen,  through  the  ordinary  art 
drudgery  of  the  school,  recognizing,  no  doubt,  with 
Michael  Angelo,  with  all  good  artists,  that  correct 
drawing  is  the  foundation  of  every  art  into  which 
drawing  enters  and  applying  himself  industriously  to 
it.  As  a  young  soldier  at  Potsdam  he  spent  a  good  deal 
of  his  time,  during  the  three  years  from  1880  to  1883, 
practising  oil-painting  under  the  guidance  of  Herr  Karl 
Salzmann,  a  distinguished  Berlin  painter.  Among  the 
results  of  this  instruction  was  a  picture  which  the 
princely  artist  called  "  The  Corvette — Prince  Adalbert 
in  the  Bay  of  Samitsu,"  now  hanging  in  the  residence 
of  his  brother,  Prince  Henry,  at  .Kiel ;  and  two  years 
later,  as  his  interest  in  the  navy  grew,  a  "  Fight  between 
an  Armoured  Ship  and  a  Torpedo-boat."  Innumerable 
aquarelles  and  sketches,  chiefly  of  marine  subjects,  were 
also  the  fruit  of  this  period. 

The  Emperor  has  constantly  cultivated  free  and 
friendly  intercourse  with  the  best  artists  of  his  own 
and  other  nations,  and  been  continually  engaged  devoting 
time  and  money  to  the  art  education  of  his  people.  The 
admirable  art  exhibitions  in  Berlin  of  the  best  examples 


212  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

of  painting  by  English,  French,  and  American  artists, 
which  he  personally  promoted  and  was  greatly  interested 
in,  may  be  recalled  as  instances.  If  his  efforts  in  en- 
couraging art  among  his  people  have  not  been  so 
successful  as  his  imperial  activities  in  other  directions, 
the  reason  is  not  any  fault  on  his  part,  but  simply  that 
art  refuses  to  be,  in  Shakespeare's  phrase,  "  tongue-tied 
by  authority." 

This  was  shown  by  the  chorus  of  unfavourable 
criticism  which  the  speech  to  the  sculptors  drew  forth. 
No  one  questioned  the  sincerity  of  the  Emperor  or  the 
magnanimity  of  his  aims,  nor  was  the  criticism  wholly 
caused  by  the  suspicion  that  it  savoured  of  the  "  personal 
regiment"  under  which  the  people  were  growing  im- 
patient ;  but  many  thought  he  was  pushing  the  dynastic 
principle  too  far  and  unduly  interfering  with  liberty 
of  thought  and  judgment,  and  that  there  was  something 
Oriental  as  well  as  selfish  in  occupying  with  a  gallery 
of  his  ancestors,  the  majority  of  whom  were,  after  all, 
very  ordinary  people,  one  of  the  fairest  spots  in  the 
capital.  Perhaps,  however,  what  was  most  objected 
to  was  his  trying  to  drive  the  art  of  the  nation  into 
a  groove,  the  direction  given  by  himself :  in  trying  to 
inspire  it  with  a  particular  spirit  and  that  an  ancient 
not  a  modern  spirit,  when  he  ought  to  let  the  spirit 
come  of  its  own  accord  out  of  the  mind  of  the  people — 
the  mind  of  many  millions,  not  the  mind  of  one  man, 
however  high  his  rank.  Politics  and  government  might 
be  things  in  which  he  had  a  right  to  an  authoritative 
voice,  but  art,  like  religion,  the  people  considered  to 
be  a  matter  for  individual  taste  and  judgment. 

Yet  something  may  be  advanced  in  favour  of  the 
Emperor.  His  recommendation,  for  in  fact  it  was  and 
could  be  only  that,  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
traditions  of  his  office  and  the  people's  own  view  of 
royal  government.  The  speech,  as  was  admitted,  was 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     213 

suggested  by  no  mere  dilettante's  vanity,  but,  as  is  evident 
from  his  words  at  the  Art  Museum,  by  the  conviction 
that  just  as  it  is  the  imperial  duty  to  provide  an  efficient 
army  and  navy,  so  it  is  the  imperial  duty  to  use  every 
personal  arid  private,  as  well  as  every  public  and  official, 
effort  to  provide  the  people  with  an  art  as  efficient,  as 
honest,  and  as  clean  ;  and  it  was  inevitable  that  the  art 
the  Emperor  recommended  was  that  which  he  believed, 
and  still  believes,  to  be  in  conformity  with  the  ideals, 
as  he  interprets  them,  or  would  have  them  to  be,  of  the 
Germanic  race. 

The  speech  itself  is  interesting  as  showing  the  Em- 
peror's attitude  towards  art  and  artists  and  his  personal 
conception  of  art  and  its  nature.  His  attitude  is 
evidently  that  of  the  art-loving  prince  of  whom  he  speaks 
in  the  address,  a  royal  Maecenas  or  di  Medici,  who 
gathers  artists  round  him  ;  but  he  means  to  use  them', 
not  so  much  perhaps  for  art's  sake,  as  for  the  instruction 
and  elevation  of  his  folk.  A  very  laudable  aim  ;  only,  as 
it  happens,  the  folk  in  this  matter  desire  themselves  to 
decide  what  is  improving  and  elevating  for  them  and 
what  is  not.  They  are  not  willing  to  leave  the  exclusive 
choice  to  the  Emperor. 

The  Emperor,  again,  would  give  the  artist  the  freedom 
to  put  into  his  work  "  that  from  himself  which  any  artist 
must,  if  he  is  to  give  .the  work  the  stamp  of  his  own  indi- 
viduality." This  attitude,  too,  is  admirable,  but  on  the 
other  hand  lies  the  danger,  such  is  poor  human  nature, 
that  the  individuality  will  be  that  which  the  Emperor 
wishes  it  to  be,  not  the  artist's  independent  individuality 
To  the  foreign  eye  all  the  Hohenzollern  statues  in  the 
Siegesallee,  with  the  exception  possibly  of  two  or  three, 
seem  to  have  much  the  same  individuality,  though  that 
again  may  be  due  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  and  the 
foreigner's  inherent  and  ineradicable  predispositions. 

Thirdly,  art,  the  Emperor  says,  can  only  be  educative 


2i4  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

when  it  elevates  instead  of  descending  into  the  gutter. 
Hogarth  descended  into  the  gutter.  Gustav  Dore  depicts 
the  horrors  of  hell.  Yet  both  Hogarth  and  Dore  were 
great  artists,  and  educative  too.  The  Emperor  was  here 
thinking  of  the  Berlin  Secession,  a  school  just  then 
starting,  eccentric  indeed  and  far  from  "  classical,"  but 
which  nevertheless  has  since  produced  several  fine  artists. 
The  Emperor,  it  would  appear,  thinks  that  the  antique 
classical  school  is  the  true  and  only  good  school  for  the 
artist.  Very  likely  most  artists  will  agree  with  him — 
at  least  as  a  foundation  ;  but  the  belief,  it  also  appears,  is 
not  considered  in  Germany,  or  outside  of  it,  to  justify 
the  Emperor,  as  Emperor,  in  discouraging  all  other 
schools  and  particularly  the  efforts  of  modern  artists  in 
their  non-classical  imaginings. 

The  Emperor  says  art  "  takes  its  models,  supplies  itself 
from  the  great  sources  of  Mother  Nature."  With  all 
courtesy  to  the  Emperor  one  may  suggest  that  art,  and 
sane  art,  takes  its  models  not  only  from  Mother  Nature, 
but  also  from  an  almost  as  prolific  a  maternal  source, 
namely  imagination  ;  and  that  imagination  is  limited  by 
no  eternal  laws  we  know  of,  or  can  even  suspect.  Ac- 
cordingly it  is  useless  to  check,  or  try  to  check,  the 
imagination  by  telling  it  to  work  in  a  certain  direction 
— so  long,  naturally,  as  the  imagination  is  not  obviously 
indecent  or  insane. 

Again,  the  Emperor  says  that  in  classical  art  there 
reigns  an  eternal  law,  the  "  law  of  beauty  and  harmony, 
of  the  aesthetic "  which  is  expressed  in  a  "  thoroughly 
complete  form"  by  the  ancients.  It  is  admittedly  a 
delightful  and  admirable  form,  but  is  it  thoroughly  com- 
plete ?  Is  it  the  last  and  only  form  ;  and  may  not  the 
very  same  law  be  found  by  experiment  to  be  at  work  in 
future  art  that  cannot  be  called  classical,  as  it  was  found 
to  be  at  work  in  the  various  noble  schools  since  classical 
times  ?  One  must  agree  with  the  Emperor  that  the  Greeks 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     215 

and  Romans  illustrated  the  "  law  of  beauty  and  harmony, 
of  the  aesthetic,  in  a  wonderful  manner."  But  it  was 
wonderfully  done  for  their  age  and  intellect.  They  did 
not  exhaust  the  beautiful  and  harmonious  :  far  from  it. 

Neither  the  world  nor  mankind  has  been  standing  still 
ever  since  ;  certainly  the  mind  of  man  has  not,  even 
though  his  senses  have  undergone  no  elemental  change. 
Paganism  was  succeeded  by  Christianity,  and  with 
Christianity  came  a  new  art  canon,  new  forms  of  beauty 
and  harmony — the  Early  Italian.  The  age  of  reason 
followed,  bringing  with  it  the  Baroque  and  Rococo 
canons  :  and  as  time  went  on,  and  the  world's  mind  kept 
working,  came  other  canons  still.  The  most  recent 
canon  appears  to  be  that  of  naturalism  (the  Emperor's 
"  gutter  ")  with  which  artists  are  now  experimentalizing. 
None  of  the  canons,  be  it  noticed,  destroyed  the  canon 
that  preceded,  because  beauty  and  harmony  are  indes- 
tructible and  imperishable.  "  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy 
for  ever." 

But  not  only  the  mind  of  man  kept  changing  :  the 
world  itself  and  its  civilization — by  war,  by  treaty,  by 
science,  by  invention,  by  art  itself — kept  changing,  and 
is  changing  now.  Development,  physical  as  well  as 
social,  has  been  constant,  and  the  changes  accompanying 
it  have  inspired,  and  are  inspiring,  artists  with  new  ideas 
to  which  they  are  always  trying  to  give  expression.  The 
subjects  of  art  have  enormously  multiplied.  Those  intro- 
duced by  sport  of  all  kinds,  by  the  development  of  the 
theatre,  by  the  newly-found  effects  of  light  and  colour, 
need  only  be  mentioned  as  examples  capable  of  suggesting 
beauties  and  harmonies  unknown  to  and  unsuspected  by 
the  ancients.  Hence,  in  addition  to  the  classical  art  of  the 
day,  there  is  room  for  the  "  new  art,"  the  secessionist,  the 
futurist,  the  impressionist,  even  the  cubist,  or  whatever 
the  experimental  movement  may  call  itself.  And  any  day 
any  of  these  movements  may  lead  to  the  establishment  of 


216  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

a  new  and  admirable  school  of  genuine  art  as  beautiful 
as  the  classical,  if  in  a  different  manner.  The  world  has 
no  idea  of  the  surprises  in  all  directions  yet  in  store 
for  it. 

The  Emperor,  too,  is  at  one  with  all  the  world  in 
assuming  that  art,  to  deserve  the  name,  must  possess  the 
quality  of  beauty.  He  speaks  of  "  beauty  and  harmony," 
but  let  it  be  taken  that  he  understands  beauty  to  include 
harmony.  Now,  as  has  been  suggested,  to  answer  the 
question,  what  is  beauty,  satisfactorily,  is  no  easy  matter. 
In  immediate  proximity  to  it  lies  the  question,  what  is 
ugliness  ?  It  might  be  argued  that  nothing  in  nature  is 
ugly,  and  that  the  word  was  introduced  to  express  what 
is  merely  an  inability  on  the  part  of  mankind  to  perceive 
the  beauty  which  constitutes  nature  ;  and  it  certainly  is 
possible  that,  were  man  endowed  with  the  mind  of  God, 
instead  of  with  only  some  infinitesimal  and  mysterious 
emanation  of  it,  he  would  find  all  things  in  creation,  all 
art  included,  beautiful.  The  author  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  asserts  that  when  God  had  finished  making  the 
world  He  looked  upon  His  handiwork  and  saw  that  it 
was  good.  There  is  one  advantage  in  adopting  this  view, 
and  no  small  one,  that  a  belief  in  its  truth  must  impel  us 
to  look  for  beauty  and  goodness  in  all  things,  whether  in 
art  or  nature — and  even  in  the  Secession,  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, we  shall  not  be  far  from  the  truth  in  saying,  as 
regards  art,  that  all  things  in  creation  are  beautiful,  that 
there  are  degrees  in  beauty  of  which  ugliness  is  the 
lowest,  and  that  the  truly  inspired  artist  can  make  all 
things,  ugliness  included,  beautiful. 

The  Emperor  thinks  the  appreciation  of  beauty  is  one 
of  our  innate  ideas,  like  the  ability  to  distinguish  between 
right  and  wrong,  which  we  call  conscience.  There  is  no 
agreement  among  thinkers  on  the  point,  and  it  may  be 
that  both  beauty  and  conscience  are  relative,  and  simply 
the  result  of  environment  and  education.  Certainly 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     217 

there  is  no  standard  of  beauty,  and  more  certainly  still, 
not  of  feminine  beauty.  The  Mahommedan  admires  a 
woman  who  has  the  nose  of  the  parrot,  the  teeth  of  the 
pomegranate  seed,  and  the  tread  of  the  elephant. 

But  though  there  is  no  complete  standard  of  beauty 
about  which  all  people,  at  all  times,  in  all  countries,  are 
agreed,  there  are  two  elements  of  beauty  which  may  be 
said  to  have  been  standardized,  at  least  for  the  civilized 
world,  by  the  early  Greeks  and  Romans.  These  elements 
are  simplicity  and  harmony,  simplicity  being  the  forms  of 
things  most  directly  and  pleasingly  appealing  to  the  eye 
and  most  easily  reaching  the  common  understanding, 
while  harmony  is  the  combination  of  parts  most  nearly 
identical  with  the  lines,  contours,  and  proportions  of 
nature.  These  are  two  essentials  of  good  sculpture,  and 
the  Emperor  was  talking  to  sculptors  and  perhaps  think- 
ing only  of  sculpture. 

Yet  simplicity  and  harmony  alone  do  not  constitute 
beauty,  while  on  the  other  hand  beauty  may  take  very 
complicated  forms.  A  third  element  one  may  suggest  is 
essential,  and  its  indescribable  nature  causes  all  the 
difficulty  there  is  in  defining  beauty.  This  third  element 
is — charm.  A  work  of  art,  to  be  beautiful,  must  charm, 
and  to  different  people  different  things  are  charming. 
Plato's  theory  is  that  the  sense  of  beauty  is  a  dim 
recollection  of  a  standard  we  have  seen  in  a  heavenly 
pre-existence.  Accepting  it  as  as  good  an  explanation  of 
charm  as  we  can  get,  we  may  conclude  by  defining 
beauty  as,  in  its  highest  form,  a  combination  of  sim- 
plicity and  harmony,  resulting  in  charm. 

The  Emperor  says  :  "  To  us  Germans  great  ideals  have 
become  permanent  possessions,  whereas  to  other  peoples 
they  have  been  more  or  less  lost."  The  remark  is  not  one 
of  those  best  calculated  to  promote  friendly  feelings  on 
the  part  of  other  peoples  towards  Germany  or  its  Emperor. 
It  is  like  his  declaration  that  Germans  are  the  "salt  of  the 


218  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

earth,"  and  of  a  piece  with  the  aggressive  attitude  of  intel- 
lectual superiority  adopted  by  many  Germans  towards 
other  nations — one  reason,  by  the  way,  for  German  un- 
popularity in  the  world.  But  is  it  true  ?  Germany  has 
great  ideals  in  permanent  possession,  but  are  they  more 
or  less  lost  to  other  peoples  ?  It  is  at  least  doubtful. 
Great  ideals  are  the  permanent  possession  of  every  great 
people ;  it  is  these  ideals  that  have  made  them  great ;  and 
they  are  no  less  great  if  they  differ  according  to  the  nature 
and  conditions  of  each  great  people.  One  might  go 
further,  indeed,  and  say  that  great  ideals  are  the  common 
property  and  permanent  possession  of  all  great  peoples. 
It  is  a  hard  saying  that  any  one  people  has  a  monopoly 
of  them.  The  contribution  of  every  great  nation  to  the 
common  stock  of  great  ideals  is  incalculable,  and  it 
would  be  interesting  to  investigate  which  nation  is  most 
successfully  working  out  its  great  ideals  in  practice. 

The  truth  is  the  German  ideal  of  beauty  in  art  is  not, 
generally  speaking,  the  same  as  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
or  Latin  foreigner.  The  art  ideals  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
and  Latin  races  in  this  respect  are  for  the  most  part 
Greek,  while  those  of  the  German  race  are  for  the  most 
part  Roman  ;  and  in  each  case  the  ideals  are  the  outcome 
of  the  spirit  which  has  had  most  influence  on  the  mind 
and  manners  of  the  different  races.  The  Greek  philo- 
sophic and  aesthetic  spirit  has  chiefly  influenced  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Latin  art  ideals :  the  Roman  spirit,  particularly 
the  military  spirit  and  the  spirit  of  law,  have  chiefly 
influenced  German  ideals  :  and,  as  a  result,  arrived  at 
through  ages  during  which  events  of  epoch-making  im- 
portance caused  many  successive  modifications,  while 
the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  races  are  most  impressed  by 
such  qualities  as  lightness  and  delicacy  of  outline,  round 
and  softly-flowing  curves  and  elegance  of  ornamentation, 
the  German  appears,  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin,  to  be 
more  impressed  by  the  elaborate,  the  gigantic,  the  Gothic, 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE   ARTS     219 

the  grotesque,  the  hard,  the  made,  the  massive,  and  the 
square.  In  both  styles  are  to  be  found  "  beauty  and  har- 
mony, the  aesthetic,"  to  quote  the  Emperor,  but  they  appeal 
differently  to  people  of  different  national  temperaments.  To 
the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  in  general,  therefore,  German 
art,  and  particularly  German  sculpture  and  architecture, 
while  impressive  and  admirable,  lack  for  most  foreigners 
the  entirely  indescribable  quality  we  have  called  "charm." 

The  true  artist,  the  Emperor  says,  needs  no  adver- 
tisement, no  press,  no  patronage.  The  Emperor  is 
right.  The  true  artist,  once  he  begins  to  produce  first-rate 
work,  will  obtain  instant  recognition,  and  his  work  will 
begin  to  sell,  not  perhaps  at  prices  the  same  kind  of  work 
may  bring  later,  but  at  prices  sufficient  to  support  the 
artist  and  his  family  in  reasonable  comfort.  If  it  does 
not,  he  is  not  producing  good  work  and  had  better  turn 
his  attention  to  something  else.  As  a  matter  of  fact  very 
few  true  artists  do  advertise,  use  the  press,  or  seek 
patronage.  The  artist  does  not  go  to  the  press  or  the 
patron,  for  nowadays,  the  moment  the  artist  does  excel- 
lent work,  the  press  and  the  patron  go  to  him,  and,  when 
he  is  very  exceptionally  good,  he  is  advertised  and 
patronized  until  he  is  sick  of  both  advertisement  and 
patronage. 

Naturally  it  is  different  in  the  case  of  the  artist  who  is 
not  excellently  good,  but  the  Emperor  was  not  consider- 
ing such.  These  artists  too,  however,  insist  on  living  and 
must  find  a  market  for  their  wares.  It  is  an  age  of  adver- 
tisement, the  growth  of  new  economic  conditions,  for 
advertisement  creates  as  well  as  reveals  new  markets. 
Hence  the  vast  host  of  mediocrities,  not  only  in  art  but 
in  almost  every  field  of  human  activity,  nowadays  adver- 
tise and  seek  patronage  because  only  in  this  way  can  they 
find  purchasers  and  live.  These  artists,  often  men  of 
talent,  dislike  having  to  advertise;  they  would  rather  work 
for  art's  sake,  but  having  to  do  so  need  not  hinder  them 


220          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

from  working  for  art's  sake,  since  all  that  is  meant  by  that 
much  misused  phrase  is  that  while  the  artist  is  working 
he  shall  not  think  of  the  reward  of  his  work,  but  simply 
and  solely  of  how  to  do  the  best  work  he  can. 

Before  leaving  the  Emperor's  speech  one  is  tempted  to 
inquire  what  should  be  the  attitude  of  a  sovereign  towards 
art  and  artists.  For  the  Englishman  the  doctrine  of  Indi- 
vidualism— the  thing  he  is  so  apt  to  make  a  fetish  of — 
gives  an  answer,  and,  it  may  be,  the  right  one.  The 
Englishman  will  probably  say  that  if  in  any  one  province 
of  life  more  than  in  another  freedom  should  be  allowed 
to  originality  of  conception  regarding  the  form  as  well  as 
the  substance,  the  manner  as  well  as  the  matter,  it  is  in 
the  province  of  art,  always  provided,  of  course,  that  the 
artist  is  sane  and  not  guilty  of  indecency.  The  artist, 
like  the  poet,  is  born  not  made  ;  you  cannot  make  an 
artist,  you  can  only  make  an  artisan.  The  artist,  who 
represents  the  Creator,  the  creative  faculty,  can  influence 
man  :  man  cannot,  and  should  not  try  to,  influence  the 
artist,  but  can,  and  should  only,  offer  him  the  materials 
for  his  art,  smooth  the  way  for  his  endeavour,  encourage 
him  in  it  by  sympathetic  yet  candid  criticism,  and  above 
all,  when  he  can  afford  it,  by  buying  the  result  of  his 
endeavour  when  it  is  successful. 

This  should  be  the  attitude  of  both  monarch  and  Maece- 
nas :  it  is  an  attitude  of  benevolent  neutrality.  "  I  know," 
such  a  Maecenas  might  say  to  the  artist,  "  that  your  artistic 
faculties  move  in  an  atmosphere  above  as  well  as  on  the 
earth,  as  I  know  that  above  the  atmosphere  of  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  which  envelops  the  earth  there  is  an 
ethereal,  a  rarefied  atmosphere,  which  stretches  to  worlds 
of  which  all  we  know  is  that 'they  exist.  If  your  spirit 
can  soar  above  this  earthly  atmosphere,  well  and  good. 
I,  for  one,  shall  do  nothing  to  limit  or  hinder  it  :  I  shall 
only  welcome  and  applaud  and  reward  whatever  effort 
you  make  to  bring  our  inner  being  a  step,  long  or  short, 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE   ARTS     221 

nearer  to  the  source  of  celestial  light.  Consequently,  I 
offer  you  no  instructions  and  put  no  fetters  on  your 
imagination."  It  takes  all  sorts  of  art  to  make  an  artistic 
world,  as  it  takes  all  sorts  of  people  to  make  the  human 
world  :  a  world  with  only  classic  art  in  it  would  be  as 
uninteresting  and  unthinkable  as  a  world  in  which  every 
one  was  of  the  same  character,  occupation,  and  dress. 

But  it  is  time  to  consider  the  Emperor  a  little  more  in 
detail  in  relation  to  his  connexion  with  the  arts.  If  he 
were  not  a  first-rate  monarch  he  would  probably  be  a 
first-rate  artist.  He  said  once  that  if  he  were  to  be  an 
artist,  he  would  be  a  sculptor.  But  if  he  is  not  a  profes- 
sional artist  he  is  a  connoisseur,  a  dilettante  in  the  right 
sense,  a  lover  of  the  arts,  an  art-loving  prince.  The 
painter  Salzmann  tells  us  how  he  used  to  go  to  the  Villa 
Liegnitz  in  Potsdam  to  give  Prince  William  lessons,  and 
how  the  Empress,  then  Princess  William,  used  to  sit  with 
the  pupil  and  his  teacher,  discussing  technical  and  art 
questions.  A  result  of  the  teaching,  in  addition  to  the 
pictures  mentioned  elsewhere,  was  an  oil-painting,  a 
sea-fight,  which  still  hangs  in  the  Ravene  Gallery  in 
Berlin. 

In  the  spring  of  1886  the  Prince  sent  his  teacher  a 
sketch  for  criticism.  Salzmann  wired  his  opinion  to 
Potsdam,  and  a  telegram  came  back,  "  What  does  '  wind 
too  anxious '  mean  ?  is  it  so  stormily  painted  that  you 
shuddered  at  it,  or  is  it  not  stormy  enough  ?  "  Salzmann 
is  also  authority  for  the  statement  that  the  Prince  sent  in 
a  sea-piece  to  the  annual  Berlin  Art  Exhibition.  It  was 
placed  ready  to  be  judged,  but  suddenly  disappeared. 
The  Emperor  William,  it  appeared,  had  decided  that  it 
would  not  do  for  a  future  Emperor  to  compete  with 
professional  artists  or  run  the  risk  of  sarcastic  public 
criticism.  Naturally  since  he  came  to  the  throne  the 
Emperor  has  never  had  time  to  cultivate  his  talent  as  a 
painter,  but  has  always  fed  his  eyes  and  mind  on  the  best 


222  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

kind  of  painting,  and  brings  his  sense  of  form  and  colour 
to  bear  on  everything  he  does  or  has  a  voice  in. 

That  the  Emperor's  own  taste  in  painting  is  of  a 
"  classical "  kind  in  a  very  catholic  sense  was  shown  by 
the  personal  interest  he  took  in  getting  together  and 
having  brought  to  Berlin  the  exhibition  of  old  English 
masters  in  1908.  At  his  request  the  English  owners  of 
many  of  these  treasures  agreed  to  lend  them  for  exhibi- 
tion in  Germany,  submitting  thereby  to  the  risk  of  loss 
or  damage,  displaying  an  unselfish  disposition  to  aid  in 
elevating  the  taste  of  a  foreign  people,  and  at  the  same 
time  giving  Germans  a  better  and  more  tangible  idea  of 
the  nation  which  could  produce  artists  of  such  nobility 
of  feeling  and  marvellous  technical  capacity.  The 
Emperor  paid  several  visits  to  the  exhibition  and  thou- 
sands of  Berlin  folk  followed  his  example,  so  that  the 
beauty  of  the  works  of  Gainsborough,  Raeburn,  Lawrence, 
Hoppner,  and  Romney  was  for  months  a  topic  of  enthu- 
siastic conversation  in  the  capital. 

Encouraged  by  this  success,  the  Emperor  next 
caused  a  similar  exhibition  of  French  painters  to  be 
arranged.  The  Rococo  period  was  now  chosen,  many 
lovely  specimens  of  the  art  of  Watteau,  Lancret,  David, 
Vigee,  Lebrun,  Fragonnard,  Greuze,  and  Bonnat  were 
procured,  and  again  the  Berliner  was  given  an  oppor- 
tunity not  only  of  enjoying  an  artistic  treat  of  a  delightful 
kind,  but  of  comparing  the  impressions  made  on  him 
by  the  art  spirits  of  two  other  nations.  The  opening 
of  this  French  exhibition  was  made  by  the  Emperor  the 
occasion  of  emphasizing  his  conciliatory  feelings  towards 
France,  for  he  attended  an  evening  entertainment  at 
the  French  Embassy  given  specially  in  honour  of  the 
occasion. 

A  third  art  exhibition  followed  in  1910 — that  of  two 
hundred  American  oil  paintings  brought  to  Berlin  and 
shown  in  the  Royal  Academy  of  Arts  on  the  Pariser 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     223 

Platz.  They  included  works  by  Sargent,  Whistler,  Gari 
Melchior,  Leon  Dabo,  Joseph  Pennell,  and  many  others. 
The  suggestion  for  this  exhibition  did  not  proceed  from 
the  Emperor,  but  in  all  possible  ways  he  gave  the  exhibi- 
tion his  personal  support.  On  returning  from  inspecting 
it  he  telegraphed  to  the  American  Ambassador  in  Berlin, 
Dr.  D.  J.  Hill,  to  express  the  pleasure  he  had  derived 
from  what  he  had  seen.  Nor  was  such  a  mark  of  admira- 
tion surprising.  The  exhibition  was  nothing  short  of  a 
revelation,  going  far  to  dissipate  the  German  belief — 
perhaps  the  English  belief  also — that  America  possesses 
no  body  of  painters  of  the  first  rank. 

Again  we  have  recourse  to  the  marine  painter,  Herr 
Salzmann.  Wired  for  by  the  Emperor,  the  painter  got 
to  the  palace  at  10.15  P-m-  When  he  arrived  the 
Emperor  cried  out,  "  So,  at  last !  Where  have  you  been 
hiding  yourself  ?  I  have  had  Berlin  searched  for  you." 
The  Emperor  and  Empress  and  suite  had  just  returned 
from  the  theatre  and  were  standing  about  the  room.  It 
turned  out  that  the  Emperor  wanted  the  painter  to  help 
him  sketch  a  battleship  of  a  certain  design  he  had  in 
mind,  to  see  how  it  would  look  on  the  water.  In  the 
middle  of  the  room  an  adjutant  stood  and  read  out  a 
speech  made  by  a  Radical  deputy  in  the  Reichstag  that 
day,  and  the  Emperor  made  occasional  remarks  about  it, 
though  at  the  same  time  he  was  engaged  with  the  ship. 
The  painter  does  not  forget  to  add  that  he  "  was  provided 
with  a  good  glass  of  beer." 

The  Emperor  is  reported  to  be  a  capital  "  sitter."  He 
had  the  French  painter  Borchart  staying  with  him  at 
Potsdam  to  paint  his  portrait.  Borchart  describes  him 
as  an  ideal  model,  so  still  and  patiently  did  he  sit,  and 
this  at  times  for  more  than  two  hours.  He  talked  freely 
during  the  sittings.  "  I  don't  want  to  be  regarded  as  a 
devourer  of  Frenchmen,"  was  a  remark  made  on  one 
of  these  occasions ;  on  another  he  praised  President 


224  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Loubet ;  and  on  a  third  he  had  a  good  word  even  for 
the  Socialist  Jaures.  When  Borchart  had  finished  and 
naively  expressed  satisfaction  with  his  own  work  the 
Emperor  said,  "  Na,  na,  friend  Borchart,  not  so  proud ; 
it  is  for  us  to  criticize." 

As  the  Emperor  is  a  lover  of  the  "  classical "  in  paint- 
ing and  sculpture,  it  is  not  strange  to  find  him  an  admirer 
of  the  classical  in  music  and  recommending  it  to  his 
people  as  the  best  form  of  musical  education.  He  holds 
that  there  is  much  in  common  between  it  and  the  folk- 
songs of  Germany.  At  Court  he  revived  classical  dances 
like  the  minuet  and  the  gavotte.  He  is  devoted  to  opera 
and  never  leaves  before  the  end  of  the  performance. 
Concerts  frequently  take  place  in  the  royal  palaces  at 
Potsdam  and  Berlin,  items  on  the  programme  for  them 
being  often  suggested  by  the  Emperor.  The  programme 
is  then  submitted  to  him  and  is  rarely  returned  without 
alteration.  Not  seldom  the  concert  is  preceded  by  a 
rehearsal,  which  the  Emperor  attends  and  which  itself 
has  been  carefully  rehearsed  beforehand,  as  the  Emperor 
expects  everything  to  run  smoothly.  At  these  rehearsals 
he  will  often  cause  an  item  to  be  repeated.  Bach  and 
Handel  are  his  prime  favourites.  He  is  no  admirer  of 
Strauss.  Wagner  he  often  listens  to  with  pleasure,  and 
especially  the  "  Meistersinger,"  which  is  his  pet  opera. 
Of  Italian  operas  Verdi's  "Aida"  and  Meyerbeer's 
"  Huguenots "  are  those  he  is  most  disposed  to  hear. 

He  has  been  laughed  at  for  once  attempting  musical 
composition.  The  "  Song  to  Aegir,"  which  he  composed 
in  1894  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  (when  he  should  have 
known  better),  was,  he  told  the  bandmaster  of  a  Hannove- 
rian  regiment,  suggested  to  him  by  the  singing  of  a 
Hannoverian  glee  society.  It  is  a  song  twenty-four  lines 
long,  with  the  inevitable  references  to  the  foe,  and  the 
sword  and  shield,  and  whales  and  mermaids,  and  the  God 
of  the  waves,  who  is  called  on  to  quell  the  storm.  The 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     225 

lady-in-waiting  who  wrote  the  "  Private  Lives  of  the 
Emperor  and  His  Consort"  tells  with  much  detail  how 
the  song  was  really  written,  not  by  the  Emperor,  but 
almost  wholly  by  a  musical  adjutant.  It  does  not  greatly 
matter,  but  it  is  likely  that  the  Emperor  is  responsible 
for  the  text  if  he  did  not  compose  the  music. 

One  of  the  best  and  most  interesting  descriptions  of 
his  kindly  and  characteristic  way  of  treating  artists  is 
that  given  by  the  late  Norwegian  composer,  Eduard 
Grieg. 

"  The  other  day,"  writes  the  composer,  "  I  had  a  chance 
to  meet  your  Kaiser.  He  had  already  expressed  a  desire 
last  year  to  meet  me,  but  I  was  ill  at  that  time.  Now  he 
has  renewed  his  wish,  and  therefore  I  could  not  decline 
the  invitation.  I  am,  as  you  know,  little  of  a  courtier. 
But  I  said  to  myself,  '  Remember  Aalesund '  (for  which 
the  Emperor  had  sent  a  large  sum  after  a  great  fire),  and 
my  sense  of  duty  conquered.  Our  first  meeting  was  at 
breakfast  at  the  German  Consul's  house.  During  the 
meal  we  spoke  much  about  music.  I  like  his  ways,  and — 
oddly  enough — our  opinions  also  agreed.  Afterwards  he 
came  to  me  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  with  him 
alone  for  nearly  an  hour.  We  spoke  about  everything 
in  heaven  and  earth — about  poetry,  painting,  religion, 
Socialism,  and  the  Lord  knows  what  besides. 

"  He  was  fortunately  a  human  being,  and  not  an 
Emperor.  I  was  therefore  permitted  to  express  my 
opinions  openly,  though  in  a  discreet  manner,  of  course. 
Then  followed  some  music.  He  had  brought  along  an 
orchestra  (!),  about  forty  men.  He  took  two  chairs, 
placed  them  in  front  of  all  the  others,  sat  down  on  one, 
and  said,  '  If  you  please,  first  parquet ' ;  and  then  the 
music  began — Sigurd  Jorsalfar,  Peer  Gynt,  and  many 
other  things. 

"While  the  music  was  being  played  he  continually 
aided  me  in  correcting  the  tempi  and  the  expression, 
Q 


226  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

although  as  a  matter  of  course  I  had  not  wanted  to  do 
such  a  thing.  He  was  very  insistent,  however,  that  I 
should  make  my  intentions  clear.  Then  he  illustrated 
the  impression  made  by  the  music  by  movements  of  his 
head  and  body.  It  was  wonderful  (gdttlich)  to  watch 
his  serpentine  movements  a  la  Orientalin  while  they 
played  Anitra's  dance,  which  quite  electrified  him. 

"Afterwards  I  had  to  play  for  him  on  the  piano,  and 
my  wife,  who  sat  nearest  him,  told  me  that  here  too  he 
illustrated  the  impression  made  on  him,  especially  at  the 
best  places. 

"  I  played  the  minuet  from  the  pianoforte  sonata, 
which  he  found  '  very  Germanic '  and  powerfully  built ; 
and  the  '  Wedding  Day  at  Troldhaugen,'  which  piece  he 
also  liked. 

"  On  the  following  day  there  was  a  repetition  of  these 
things  on  board  the  Hohenzollern,  where  we  were  all 
invited  to  dinner  at  eight  o'clock.  The  orchestra  played 
on  deck  in  the  most  wondrously  bright  summer  night, 
while  many  hundreds — nay,  I  believe  thousands — of 
rowboats  and  small  steamers  were  grouped  about  us. 
The  crowd  applauded  constantly  and  cheered  enthu- 
siastically whenever  the  Kaiser  became  visible.  He 
treated  me  like  a  patient :  he  gave  me  his  cloak  and  sent 
to  fetch  a  rug,  with  which  he  covered  me  carefully. 

"  I  must  not  forget  to  relate  that  he  grew  so  enthu- 
siastic over  *  Sigurd  Jorsalfar/  the  subject  of  which  I 
explained  to  him  as  minutely  as  possible,  that  he  said 
to  von  Hiilsen,  the  intendant  of  the  royal  theatres,  who 
sat  next  to  him  :  '  We  must  produce  this  work  ! '  (This 
was  not  done,  however.) 

"  I  then  invited  von  Hiilsen  to  come  to  Christiania 
to  witness  a  performance  of  it,  and  he  said  he  was  very 
eager  to  so.  All  in  all  this  meeting  was  an  event  and 
a  surprise  in  the  best  sense.  The  Kaiser,  certainly,  is 
a  very  uncommon  man,  a  strange  mixture  of  great  energy, 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE   ARTS     227 

great  self-reliance,  and  great  kindness  of  heart.  Of 
children  and  animals  he  spoke  often  and  with  sympathy, 
which  I  regard  as  a  significant  thing." 

On  the  New  Year's  Day  following  the  Emperor  sent 
the  composer  a  telegram  reading  :  "To  the  northern  bard 
to  listen  to  whose  strains  has  always  been  a  joy  to  me 
I  send  my  most  sincere  wishes  for  the  new  year  and 
new  creative  activity."  In  1906,  Grieg,  having  once  more 
been  the  Emperor's  guest,  writes  to  a  friend  :  "  He  was 
greatly  pleased  with  having  become  once  more  a  grand- 
father. He  called  to  me  across  the  table  (referring  to 
'  Sigurd '),  <  Is  it  agreeable  if  I  call  the  child  Sigurd  ? '  It 
must  be  something  Urgermanisch." 

The  following  anecdote  may  remind  the  reader  of  the 
amusing  scene  in  Offenbach's  "  Grand  Duchesse  of 
Gerolstein,"  where  the  Grand  Duchess,  talking  to  the 
guardsman  whose  athletic  proportions  she  admires, 
addresses  him  with  a  rising  scale  of  "  corporal "... 
"  sergeant "  .  .  .  "  lieutenant "  .  .  .  "  captain  "  .  .  .  "  col- 
onel," and  so  on,  as  she  talks,  only,  however,  later 
cruelly  to  re-descend  the  scale  to  the  very  bottom  when 
her  courtship  is  ineffectual.  The  Emperor  is  at  an 
organ  recital  in  the  Kaiser  William  Memorial  Church  ; 
the  recital  is  over  and  the  Court  party  are  about  to  go 
when  he  greets  the  organist,  Herr  Fischer  :  "  My  cordial 
thanks  for  the  great  pleasure  you  have  given  us,  Herr 
Professor."  "  Pardon,  your  Majesty,"  replies  the  organist, 
with  commendable  presence  of  mind  :  "  May  I  venture 
to  thank  your  Majesty  for  the  great  mark  of  favour  ?  " 
"  What  mark  of  favour  ? "  asks  the  Emperor,  a  little 
puzzled.  "  The  fact  is  your  Majesty  has  more  than  once 

addressed  me  as  '  professor,'  although "  "  Why,  that's 

good,"  exclaims  the  Emperor,  with  a  great  laugh,  "  very 
good  indeed  ;  "  and  striking  his  forehead  in  self-reproach 
with  the  palm  of  his  hand  :  "  so  forgetful  of  me  !  Then 
you  are  not  professor,  after  all !  Well,  no  matter  ;  what  is 


228  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

not,  may  be — what  I  said,  I  said.  Adieu,  Herr  Professor  !" 
and  goes  off  smiling.  The  very  same  evening — need 
it  be  added  ? — Herr  Fischer  had  his  patent  as  Pro- 
fessor in  his  pocket. 

The  Emperor  is  particularly  fond  of  "  my  Americans  " 
among  his  operatic  artists.  A  good  deal  of  jealousy 
has  at  times  been  shown  by  the  German  employes  of 
the  opera  towards  the  American  artists  entertained  there, 
and  a  deputy  has  more  than  once  protested  in  the 
Reichstag  against  the  number  employed ;  but  the  jealousy 
rarely  results  in  harm,  and  on  the  whole  harmony — as 
it  should — prevails. 

Every  year  brings  hundreds  of  American  girl  students 
to  Berlin,  Munich,  or  Dresden  to  learn  singing  and 
perhaps  carry  off  the  great  prize  of  a  "  star  "  engagement 
at  one  or  the  other  of  the  German  royal  opera  houses. 
The  experiences  of  some  of  these  students  are  tragedies 
on  a  small  scale,  and  in  one  or  two  instances  have 
been  known  to  end  in  death,  destitution,  or  dishonour. 
The  explanation  is  simple.  Such  students,  filled  with 
the  high  hopes  inspired  by  artistic  ambition  and  the 
artist's  imagination,  fail  to  ask  themselves  before  going 
abroad  if  nature  has  endowed  them  with  the  qualities 
and  powers  requisite  for  one  of  the  most  laborious 
and,  for  a  girl,  exposed  professions  in  the  world ;  and 
do  not  learn  until  it  is  too  late  that  they  lack  the  resolute 
character,  the  robust  health,  and  the  talent  which,  not 
singly  but  all  three  combined,  are  essential  to  success. 

Such  a  girl  often  starts  on  her  enterprise  poorly 
supplied  with  means  to  pay  for  her  board,  lodging, 
clothes,  recreation,  and  instruction  ;  she  changes  from 
the  dearer  sort  of  pension  to  the  cheaper,  finding  her 
company  and  surroundings  at  each  remove  more  doubt- 
ful and  more  dangerous  ;  she  grows  disappointed  and 
disheartened,  perhaps  physically  ill ;  comes  under  bad 
influences,  male  or  female  ;  until  finally  the  curtain  falls 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     229 

on  a  sufferer  rescued  at  the  last  moment  by  relatives 
or  friends,  or  on  a  young  life  blasted.  Such  tragic  cases, 
it  should  be  said,  are  far  from  common,  but  they  occur, 
and  the  possibility  of  their  occurrence  ought  to  be  taken 
into  account  at  the  outset  by  the  intending  music  or 
art  student. 

Happily  there  is  another  and  brighter  side  to  the 
picture,  and  the  intending  student  with  money  and 
friends  will  enjoy  and  gain  advantage  from  a  few  years 
of  continental  life,  even  though  exceptional  strength 
and  genuine  talent  be  wanting.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
experience  of  the  great  majority  of  art  students  in 
Germany.  Freedom  from  the  restraints  and  conventions 
of  life  at  home  compensates  for  the  inconveniences 
arising  from  narrow  means.  Novelty  of  scenery  and 
surroundings  has  a  charm  that  is  constantly  recurring. 
The  kindness  and  helpfulness  of  fellow-countrymen  and 
countrywomen  make  the  wheels  of  daily  life  roll 
smoothly.  The  freemasonry  of  art,  its  optimism  and 
hope,  and  the  pleasure  and  interest  of  its  practice,  in- 
vestigation, and  discussion  wing  the  hours  and  spur 
to  effort. 

But  to  return  to  the  Emperor.  As  a  lad  at  Cassel 
he  was  fond  of  playing  charades,  and  is  reported  to 
have  had  a  knack  of  quickly  sketching  the  scenario  and 
dramatis  persona  of  a  play  which  he  and  his  young 
companions  would  then  and  there  proceed  to  act.  One 
of  these  plays  had  Charlemagne  for  its  subject,  with  a 
Saxon  feudatory,  whose  lovely  daughter,  Brunhilde, 
scorns  her  father  for  his  submission.  A  banquet,  ending 
in  a  massacre  of  Charlemagne's  followers,  is  one  of  the 
scenes,  and  as  Brunhilde  is  in  love  with  Charlemagne's 
son  she  helps  him  to  escape  from  the  massacre.  The 
play  ends  with  the  suicide  of  Brunhilde. 

As  he  grew  up  the  Emperor's  interest  in  the  theatre 
increased,  and,  as  has  been  seen,  when  he  succeeded 


23o          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

to  the  throne  he  resolved  to  make  use  of  it  for  educating 
and  elevating  the  public  mind.  As  patriotism  consists 
largely  in  knowing  and  properly  appreciating  history, 
he  has  always  encouraged  dramatists  who  could  portray 
historic  scenes  and  events,  particularly  those  with  which 
the  Hohenzollerns  were  connected.  Hence  his  support 
of  Josef  Lauff,  Ernst  von  Wildenbruch  and  Detlev  von 
Liliencron.  Not  long  ago  he  arranged  a  series  of 
performances  at  Kroll's  Theatre  intended  for  workmen 
only.  The  performances  were  chiefly  of  the  stirring 
historical  kind— Schiller's  "Wilhelm  Tell,"  Goethe's 
"  Gotz  von  Berlichingen,"  Kleist's  "  Prince  von  Hom- 
burg,"  and  others  that  require  huge  processions  and  a 
crowded  stage.  The  general  public  were  not  supposed 
to  attend  the  performances,  but  tickets  were  sent  to 
the  factories  and  workshops  for  sale  at  a  low  price. 

In  1898  the  Emperor  publicly  stated  his  views  about 
the  theatre.  "  When  I  mounted  the  throne  ten  years 
ago,"  he  said,  "  I  was,  owing  to  my  paternal  education, 
the  most  fervent  of  idealists.  Convinced  that  the  first 
duty  of  the  royal  theatres  was  to  maintain  in  the  nation 
the  cultivation  of  the  idealism  to  which,  God  be  thanked, 
our  people  are  still  faithful,  and  of  which  the  sources  are 
not  yet  nearly  exhausted,  I  determined  to  myself  to  make 
my  royal  theatres  an  instrument  comparable  to  the 
school  or  the  university  whose  mission  it  is  to  form  the 
rising  generation  and  to  inculcate  in  them  respect  for 
the  highest  moral  traditions  of  our  dear  German  land. 
For  the  theatre  ought  to  contribute  to  the  culture  of  the 
soul  and  of  the  character,  and  to  the  elevation  of  morals. 
Yes,  the  theatre  is  also  one  of  my  weapons.  ...  It  is  the 
duty  of  a  monarch  to  occupy  himself  with  the  theatre, 
because  it  may  become  in  his  hands  an  incalculable 
force." 

If  the  Emperor  has  any  special  gift  it  is  an  eye 
for  theatrical  effect  in  real  life  as  well  as  on  the  stage. 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     231 

He  had  a  good  share  of  the  actor's  temperament  in 
his  younger  years,  and  until  recently  showed  it  in 
the  conduct  of  imperial  and  royal  business  of  all  kinds. 
He  still  gives  it  play  occasionally  in  the  royal  opera 
houses  and  theatres.  The  Englishman,  whose  ruler 
is  a  civilian,  is  not  much  impressed  by  pageantry  and 
pomp,  except  as  reminding  him  of  superannuated, 
though  still  revered,  historical  traditions  and  events 
that  are  landmarks  in  a  great  military  and  maritime 
past.  He  would  not  care  to  see  his  King  always, 
or  even  frequently,  in  uniform,  as  he  would  be  apt 
to  find  in  the  fact  an  undue  preference  for  one  class 
of  citizens  to  another.  His  idea  is  that  the  monarch 
ought  to  treat  all  classes  of  his  subjects  with  equal 
kingly  favour.  In  Germany  it  is  otherwise.  The 
monarchy  relies  on  military  force  for  its  dynastic 
security,  as  much,  one  might  perhaps  say,  as  for  the 
defence  of  the  country  or  the  keeping  of  the  public 
peace,  and  consequently  favours  the  military.  More- 
over, the  peoples  that  compose  the  Empire  have  been 
harassed  throughout  the  long  course  of  their  history 
by  wars ;  a  large  percentage  of  their  youth  are  serving 
in  the  standing  army  or  in  the  reserves,  the  Landwehr 
and  the  Landsturm  ;  finally  the  Germans,  though  not, 
as  it  appears  to  the  foreigner,  an  artistic  people,  save 
in  regard  to  music,  enjoy  the  spectacular  and  the 
theatrical. 

Accordingly  we  find  the  Emperor  artistically  ar- 
ranging everything  and  succeeding  particularly  well  in 
anything  of  an  historical  and  especially  of  a  military 
nature.  The  spring  and  autumn  parades  of  the  Berlin 
garrison  on  the  Tempelhofer  Field — an  area  large 
enough,  it  is  said,  to  hold  the  massed  armies  of  Europe 
— with  their  gatherings  of  from  30,000  to  60,000 
troops  of  all  arms,  serve  at  once  to  excite  the  Berliner's 
martial  enthusiasm,  while  at  the  same  time  it  obscurely 


232  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

reminds  him  that  if  he  treats  the  dynasty  disrespectfully 
he  will  have  a  formidable  repressive  force  to  reckon 
with.  Hence  at  manoeuvres  the  Emperor  is  accompanied 
by  an  enormous  suite  ;  whenever  he  motors  down  Unter 
den  Linden  it  is  at  a  quick  pace,  which  impresses  the 
crowd  while  it  lessens  the  chances  of  the  bomb-thrower 
or  the  assassin.  The  scene  of  the  reception  of  Prince 
Chun  at  the  New  Palace  was  a  great  success  as  an 
artistic  performance,  and  the  pageants  at  the  restoration 
of  the  Hohkonigsburg  and  at  the  Saalburg  festival  were  of 
the  same  artistic  order. 

The  Emperor's  theatrical  interest  and  attention  when 
in  Berlin  are  concentrated  on  the  Berlin  Royal  Opera 
and  the  Berlin  Royal  Theatre  (Schauspielhaus),  and 
when  in  Wiesbaden  on  the  Royal  Festspielhaus  at  that 
resort.  When  in  his  capital  he  goes  very  rarely  to  any 
other  place  of  theatrical  entertainment.  His  interest  in 
the  royal  opera  and  theatre  both  in  Berlin  and 
Wiesbaden  is  personal  and  untiring,  and  he  has  done 
almost  as  much  or  more  for  the  adequate  representation 
of  grand  opera  in  his  capital  as  the  now  aged  Duke 
of  Saxe-Meiningen  did,  through  his  famous  Meiningen 
players,  for  the  proper  presentation  of  drama  in  Germany 
generally.  The  revivals  of  "  Aida  "  and  "  Les  Hugue- 
nots" under  the  Emperor's  own  supervision  are  ac- 
cepted as  faultless  examples  of  historical  accuracy  in 
every  detail  and  of  good  taste  and  harmony  in 
setting. 

In  a  well-informed  article  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  Mr.  G.  Valentine  Williams  writes  :  "  Once  the 
rehearsals  of  a  play  in  which  the  Emperor  is  interested 
are  under  way  he  loses  no  time  in  going  to  the  theatre 
to  see  whether  the  instructions  he  has  appended  to  the 
stage  directions  in  the  MS.  are  being  properly  carried 
out.  Some  morning,  when  the  vast  stage  of  the  opera 
is  humming  with  activity,  the  well-known  primrose- 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     233 

coloured  automobile  will  drive  up  to  the  entrance  and 
the  Emperor,  accompanied  only  by  a  single  adjutant, 
will  emerge.  In  three  minutes  William  II  will  be  seated 
at  a  big,  business-like  table  placed  in  the  stalls,  before 
him  a  pile  of  paper  and  an  array  of  pencils.  When  he 
is  in  the  house  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  in  anyone's 
mind  as  to  who  is  conducting  the  rehearsal.  His 
intendant  stands  at  his  side  in  the  darkened  audi- 
torium and  conveys  his  Majesty's  instructions  to  the 
stage,  for  the  Emperor  never  interrupts  the  actors 
himself.  He  rn^kes  a  sign  to  the  intendant,  scribbles 
a  note  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  while  the  intendant,  who 
is  a  pattern  of  unruffled  serenity,  just  raises  his  hand  and 
the  performance  abruptly  ceases.  There  is  a  confabula- 
tion, the  Emperor,  with  the  wealth  of  gesture  for  which 
he  is  known,  explaining  his  views  as  to  the  positions 
of  the  principals,  the  dresses,  the  uniforms,  using  any- 
thing, pencil,  penholder,  or  even  his  sword  to  illustrate 
his  meaning.  Again  and  again  up  to  a  dozen  times  the 
actors  will  be  put  through  their  paces  until  the  imperial 
Regisseur  is  entirely  satisfied  that  the  right  dramatic 
effect  has  been  obtained. 

"  All  who  have  witnessed  the  imperial  stage-manager 
at  work  agree  that  he  has  a  remarkable  flair  for  the 
dramatic.  Very  often  one  of  his  suggestions  about  the 
entrances  or  exits,  a  piece  of  '  business '  or  a  pose,  will 
be  found  on  trial  to  enhance  the  effect  of  the  scene. 
A  story  is  told  of  the  Emperor's  insistence  on  accuracy 
and  the  minute  attention  he  pays  to  detail  at  rehearsal. 
After  his  visit  to  Ofen-Pest  some  years  ago  for  the 
Jubilee  celebration,  which  had  included  a  number  of 
Hungarian  national  dances,  the  Emperor  stopped  a 
rehearsal  of  the  ballet  at  the  Berlin  opera  while  a 
Czardas  was  in  progress  and  pointed  out  to  the  ballet- 
teuses  certain  minor  details  which  were  not  correct. 

"  In  his  attitude  to  the  Court  actors  and  actresses  he 


234  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

displays  the  charm  of  manner  which  bewitches  all  with 
whom  he  comes  in  contact.  He  calls  them  '  meine 
Schauspieler,'  which  makes  one  think  of  'His  Majesty's 
Servants '  of  Shakespeare's  Globe  Theatre.  This  practice 
sometimes  has  amusing  results.  Once  when  the  Theatre 
Royal  comedian,  Dr.  Max  Pohl,  was  suddenly  taken  ill, 
the  Emperor  said  to  an  acquaintance,  '  Fancy,  my  Pohl 
had  a  seizure  yesterday  ; '  and  the  acquaintance,  think- 
ing he  was  referring  to  a  pet  dog  replied,  commisera- 
tingly  :  '  Ah,  poor  brute  ! '  After  rehearsal  the 
Emperor  often  goes  on  to  the  stage,  and  talks  with 
the  actors  about  their  parts. 

"  A  Hohenzollern  must  not  be  shown  on  the  stage 
without  the  express  permission  of  the  Emperor,  and 
in  general,  if  politics  are  mixed  up  in  an  objectionable 
way  with  the  action  of  the  drama,  the  play  will  be 
forbidden.  Above  all  the  Emperor  will  not  tolerate 
indecency,  nor  the  mere  suggestion  of  it,  in  the  plays 
given  at  the  royal  theatres.  An  anecdote  about  Herr 
Josef  Lauff's  Court  drama  'Frederick  of  the  Iron  Tooth,' 
dealing  with  an  ancestor,  an  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
and  on  which  Leoncavallo,  at  the  Emperor's  request, 
wrote  the  opera  '  Der  Roland  von  Berlin,'  shows 
the  Emperor's  strictness  in  this  respect.  Frederick  of 
the  Iron  Tooth  is  a  burgher  of  Berlin  who  leads  a  revolt 
against  the  Elector.  In  order  to  heighten  Frederick's 
hate,  Lauff  wove  in  a  love  theme  into  the  drama.  The 
wife  of  Ryke,  burgomaster  of  Berlin,  figured  as 
Frederick's  mistress  and  egged  on  her  lover  against  the 
Elector,  because  the  latter  had  hanged  her  brothers, 
the  Quitzows,  notorious  outlaws  of  the  Mark  Brandenburg. 
The  Emperor  cut  out  the  whole  episode  when  the  play 
was  submitted  to  him  in  manuscript.  The  marginal  note 
in  his  big,  bold  handwriting  ran :  '  Eine  Courtisane 
kommt  in  einem  Hohenzollerstilck  nicht  vor'  (A  courtesan 
has  no  place  in  a  Hohenzollern  drama)." 


THE    EMPEROR   AND   THE    ARTS     235 

The  Emperor's  constant  change  of  uniform  is  often 
said  to  be  a  sign  of  his  liking  for  the  theatrical,  and 
writers  have  compared  him  on  this  account  with  lightning- 
change  artists  like  the  great  Fregoli.  Rather  his  respect 
for  and  reliance  on  the  army,  a  sense  of  fitness  with 
the  occasion  to  be  celebrated,  a  feeling  of  personal 
courtesy  to  the  person  to  be  received,  are  the  motives 
for  such  changes.  The  Paris  Temps  published  the 
following  incident  apropos  of  the  Emperor's  visit  to 
England  in  November,  1902.  When,  on  arriving  at 
Port  Victoria,  the  royal  yacht  Hohenzollern  came  in 
view,  the  members  of  the  English  Court  sent  to  welcome 
the  Emperor  saw  him  through  their  glasses  walking 
up  and  down  the  captain's  bridge  wearing  a  long 
cavalry  cloak  over  a  German  military  uniform.  When 
they  stepped  on  board  they  found  him  in  the  undress 
uniform  of  an  English  admiral.  They  lunched  with 
him,  and  in  the  afternoon,  when  he  left  for  London, 
he  was  wearing  the  uniform  of  an  English  colonel  of 
dragoons.  Arrived  in  London,  he  left  for  Sandringham, 
and  must  have  changed  his  dress  en  route,  for  he 
left  the  train  in  a  frock-coat  and  tall  hat. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  theatrical  event  of  the  reign 
hitherto  was  the  production  at  the  Royal  Opera  in 
1908  of  the  historic  pantomime  "  Sardanapalus."  The 
Emperor's  idea,  as  he  said  himself,  was  to  "  make  the 
Museums  speak,"  to  which  a  Berlin  critic  replied,  "  You 
can't  dramatize  a  museum."  The  ballet,  for  it  was  that 
as  well  as  a  pantomime,  engrossed  the  Emperor's  time 
and  attention  for  several  weeks.  He  spent  hours  with 
the  great  authority  on  Assyriology,  Professor  Friedrich 
Delitzsch,  going  over  reliefs  and  plans  taken  from  the 
Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  or  borrowed  from  museums 
in  Paris,  London,  and  Vienna,  decided  on  the  costumes 
and  designed  the  war-chariots  to  be  used  in  the  ballet. 
The  notion  was  to  rehabilitate  the  reputation  of  Asurbani- 


236  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

pal,  the  second-last  King  of  Assyria,  whom  the  Greeks 
called  "  Sardanapalus,"  who  reigned  in  Nineveh  six 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  over  ^Ethiopia,  Babylon, 
and  Egypt,  and  whom  Lord  Byron,  accepting  the  Greek 
story,  represented  as  the  most  effeminate  and  debauched 
monarch  the  world  had  ever  known. 

Professor  Delitzsch,  with  a  wealth  of  recondite 
learning,  showed,  on  the  contrary,  that  Sardanapalus  was 
a  wise  and  liberal-minded  monarch,  who,  rather  than 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Medes,  built  himself  a  pyre  in 
a  chamber  of  his  palace  and  perished  on  it  with  his  wives, 
his  children,  and  his  treasure.  The  whole  four  acts, 
with  the  various  ballets,  gave  a  perfectly  faithful 
representation  of  the  period  as  described  by  Diodorus 
and  Herodotus,  and  as  plastically  shown  on  the  reliefs 
discovered  at  Nineveh  by  Sir  Henry  Layard  and 
subsequently  by  German  excavators.  Over  .£10,000 
was  spent  upon  the  production,  and  the  public  were 
worked  up  to  a  great  pitch  of  curiosity  concerning  it. 
But  it  was  a  complete  failure  as  far  as  the  public 
were  concerned.  "  Heavens  ! "  exclaimed  one  critic, 
"  what  a  bore  ! "  This,  however,  was  not  the  fault 
of  the  Emperor,  but  was  due  to  want  of  interest  on  the 
part  of  a  public  whose  enthusiasm  for  the  events  and 
characters  of  times  so  remote  could  only  be  kindled 
by  a  genius,  and  a  dramatic  one.  The  Emperor  is  no 
such  genius,  nor  had  he  one  at  command. 


XI 

THE   NEW   CENTURY  (continued) 
1902-1904 

KING  GEORGE  V  has  hardly  been  sufficiently 
long  on  the  English  throne  for  a  contemporary 
to  judge  of  the  personal  relations  that  exist 
between  his  Majesty  and  the  Emperor  as  chief  repre- 
sentatives of  their  respective  nations.  The  King  of 
England  was,  until  June,  1913,  hindered  by  various 
circumstances  from  paying  a  visit  to  the  Court  of  Berlin, 
and  rumours  were  current  that  relations  between  the 
two  rulers  were  not  as  friendly  as  they  might  and 
should  be.  There  is  now  every  indication  that  though 
the  relations  of  people  to  people  and  Government  to 
Government  vary  in  degrees  of  coolness  or  warmth,  the 
two  monarchs  are  on  perfectly  good  terms  of  cousinship 
and  amity. 

A  visit  paid  by  King  George,  when  Prince  of  Wales,  to 
the  Emperor  in  Potsdam  at  the  opening  of  1902  testified 
to  the  goodwill  that  then  subsisted  between  them.  It 
was  the  evening  before  the  Emperor's  birthday,  when  the 
Emperor,  at  a  dinner  given  by  the  officers  of  King 
Edward's  German  regiment,  the  ist  Dragoon  Guards, 
addressed  the  English  Heir  Apparent  in  words  of  hearty 
welcome.  The  address  was  not  a  long  one,  but  in  it  the 
Emperor  characteristically  seized  on  the  motto  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  "  Ich  dien  "  (I  serve),  to  make  it  the  text 
of  a  laudatory  reference  to  his  young  guest's  conduct  and 

237 


238  WILLIAM   OF    GERMANY 

career.  In  its  course  the  Emperor  touched  on  the  Prince's 
tour  of  forty  thousand  miles  round  the  world,  and  the 
effect  his  "  winning  personality "  had  had  in  bringing 
together  loyal  British  subjects  everywhere,  and  helping 
to  consolidate  the  Iniperiuin  Britaniiicum,  "  on  the  terri- 
tories of  which,"  as  the  Emperor  said,  doubtless  with  an 
imperial  pang  of  envy,  "  the  sun  never  sets."  The  Prince, 
in  his  reply,  tendered  his  birthday  congratulations,  and 
expressed  his  "  respect  "  for  the  Emperor,  the  appropriate 
word  to  use,  considering  the  ages  and  royal  ranks  of  the 
Emperor  and  his  younger  first  cousin. 

With  1902  may  be  said  to  have  begun  the  Emperor's 
courtship  (as  it  is  often  called  in  Germany)  of  America. 
His  advances  to  the  Dollar  Princess  since  then  have  been 
unremitting  and  on  the  whole  cordially,  if  somewhat 
coyly,  received. 

The  growth  of  intercourse  of  all  kinds  between  Germany 
and  the  United  States  is  indeed  one  of  the  features  of  the 
reign.  There  are  several  reasons  why  it  is  natural  that 
friendly  relationship  should  exist.  It  has  been  said  on 
good  authority  that  thirty  millions  of  American  citizens 
have  German  blood  in  their  veins.  Frederick  the  Great 
was  the  first  European  monarch  to  recognize  the  inde- 
pendence of  America.  German  men  of  learning  go  to 
school  in  America,  and  American  men  of  learning  go 
to  school  in  Germany.  A  large  proportion  of  the  pro- 
fessors in  American  universities  have  studied  at  German 
universities.  The  two  countries  are  thousands  of  miles 
apart,  and  are  therefore  less  exposed  to  causes  of  inter- 
national jealousy  and  quarrel  between  contiguous  nations. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  new  place  America  has  taken  in 
the  Old  World,  dating,  it  may  be  said  roughly,  from  the 
time  of  her  war  with  Spain  (1898)  ;  the  increase  of  her 
influence  in  the  world,  mainly  through  the  efforts  of 
brave,  benevolent,  and  able  statesmen  ;  the  expansion 
of  her  trade  and  commerce  ;  the  increase  of  the  European 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  239 

tourist  traffic  ; — these  factors  also  to  some  extent  account 
for  the  growth  of  friendly  intercourse  between  the 
peoples. 

Nor  should  the  bond  between  the  two  countries  created 
by  intermarriage  be  overlooked.  If  the  well-dowered 
republican  maid  is  often  ambitious  of  union  with  a  scion 
of  the  old  European  nobility,  the  usually  needy  German 
aristocrat  is  at  least  equally  desirous  of  mating  with  an 
American  heiress  notwithstanding  the  vast  differences 
in  race-character,  political  sentiment,  manners,  and  views 
of  life — and  especially  of  the  status  and  privileges  of 
woman — that  must  fundamentally  separate  the  parties. 
Great  unhappiness  is  frequently  the  result  of  such 
marriages,  perhaps  it  may  be  said  of  a  large  proportion 
of  international  marriages,  but  cases  of  great  mutual 
happiness  are  also  numerous,  and  help  to  bring  the 
countries  into  sympathy  and  understanding.  Prince 
Biilow,  when  Chancellor,  reminded  the  Reichstag,  which 
was  discussing  an  objection  raised  to  the  late  Freiherr 
Speck  von  Sternburg,  when  German  Ambassador  to 
America,  that  he  had  married  an  American  lady,  that 
though  Bismarck  had  laid  down  the  rule  that  German 
diplomatists  ought  not  to  marry  foreigners,  he  was  quite 
ready  to  make  exceptions  in  special  cases,  and  that 
America  was  one  of  them.  The  Emperor  is  well  known 
to  have  no  objection  to  his  diplomatic  representative  at 
Washington  being  married  to  an  American,  but  rather 
to  prefer  it,  provided,  of  course,  that  the  lady  has  plenty 
of  money. 

A  difficulty  between  Germany  and  Venezuela  arose  in 
1902  owing  to  the  ill-treatment  suffered  by  German 
merchants  in  Venezuela  in  the  course  of  the  civil  war 
in  that  country  from  1898  to  1900. 

The  merchants  complained  that  loans  had  been  exacted 
from  them  by  President  Castro  and  his  Government,  and 
that  munitions  of  war  and  cattle  had  been  taken  for  the 


24o  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

use  of  the  army  and  left  unpaid  for.  The  amount  of 
the  claim  was  1,700,000  Bolivars  (francs),  a  sum  that 
included  the  damage  suffered  by  the  merchants'  creditors 
in  Germany.  Similar  complaints  were  made  by  English 
and  Italian  merchants.  After  several  efforts  on  the  part 
of  Germany  to  obtain  redress  had  failed,  negotiations 
were  broken  off,  the  diplomatic  representative  of  Germany 
was  recalled,  and  finally  the  combined  fleets  of  England, 
Germany,  and  Italy  established  a  blockade  of  the 
Venezuelan  coast.  The  difficulty  was  eventually  referred 
to  the  Hague  Court  of  Arbitration,  which  allowed  the 
claims  and  directed  payment  of  them  on  the  security  of 
the  revenues  of  the  customs  ports  of  La  Guayra  and 
Puerto  Cabella. 

For  a  time  the  action  of  the  Powers  caused  discussion 
of  the  Monroe  doctrine  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
On  this  side  it  was  pointed  out  that  American  suscepti- 
bilities had  been  respected  by  the  conduct  of  the  Powers 
in  not  landing  troops,  while  on  the  other  side  there  were 
not  wanting  voices  to  exclaim  that  the  naval  demonstra- 
tion went  too  near  being  a  breach  of  the  hallowed 
creed — "hands  off"  the  Western  Hemisphere.  The 
Monroe  doctrine,  it  may  be  recalled,  was  contained 
in  a  message  of  President  James  Monroe,  issued  on 
February  2,  1823.  It  was  drawn  up  by  John  Quincey 
Adams,  and  declared  that  the  United  States  "regarded 
not  only  every  effort  of  the  Holy  Alliance  to  extend  its 
system  to  the  Western  Hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  the 
peace  and  freedom  of  the  United  States,  but  also  every 
interference  with  the  object  of  subverting  any  indepen- 
dent American  Government  in  the  light  of  unfriendliness 
towards  America  "  ;  and  it  went  on  to  declare  that  "  the 
Continents  of  America  should  no  more  be  regarded  as 
fields  for  European  colonization." 

The  day,  of  course,  may  come  when  the  American 
claim  to  the  control,  if  not  physical  possession,  of  half 


THE    NEW  CENTURY  241 

the  earth  will  be  questioned  by  the  Powers  of  Europe  ; 
but  at  present,  as  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  and 
notwithstanding  the  absurd  idea  that  Germany  plans  the 
seizure  one  day  of  Brazil,  the  doctrine  is  of  merely 
academic  interest.  For  a  few  days  four  years  later  it 
became  the  subject  of  lively  discussion  in  Germany  and 
America  owing  to  the  first  American  Roosevelt  professor, 
Professor  Burgess,  referring  to  it  in  his  inaugural  lecture 
before  the  Emperor  and  Empress  as  an  "  antiquated 
theory."  As  soon,  however,  as  it  became  apparent  that 
Professor  Burgess  was  giving  utterance  to  a  purely 
personal  opinion,  and  was  not  in  any  sense  the  bearer 
of  a  message  on  the  subject  from  the  President,  the 
discussion  dropped. 

Another  American  episode  of  the  year  was  the  visit  of 
Prince  Henry,  the  Emperor's  brother,  to  the  United 
States.  Prince  Henry  left  for  America  in  February.  The 
visit  was  in  reality  made  in  pursuance  of  the  Emperor's 
world-policy  of  economic  expansion,  but  there  were  not 
a  few  politicians  in  England  and  America  to  assert  that  it 
was  part  of  a  deep  scheme  of  the  Emperor's  to  counteract 
too  warm  a  development  of  Anglo-American  friendship. 
However  that  may  be,  the  visit  was  a  striking  one,  even 
though  it  gave  no  great  pleasure  to  Germans,  who  could 
not  see  any  particular  reason  for  it,  nor  any  prospect  of 
it  yielding  Germany  immediate  tangible  return  for  trouble 
and  expense.  Prince  Henry,  it  is  said,  though  the  most 
genial  and  democratic  of  Hohenzollerns,  was  a  little 
taken  back  at  the  American  freedom  of  manners,  the 
wringing  of  hands,  the  slapping  on  the  back,  and  other 
republican  demonstrations  of  friendship  ;  but  he  cannot 
have  shown  anything  of  such  a  feeling,  for  he  was  feted 
on  all  sides,  and  soon  developed  into  a  popular  hero. 

One  of  the  incidents  of  the  visit,  previously  arranged, 
was  the  christening  of  the  Emperor's  new  American-built 
yacht,  Meteor  III,  by  Miss  Alice  Roosevelt,  the  President's 
R 


242  WILLIAM  OF   GERMANY 

daughter.  On  February  25th  the  Emperor  received  a 
cablegram  from  Prince  Henry  :  "  Fine  boat,  baptized  by 
the  hand  of  Miss  Alice  Roosevelt,  just  launched  amid 
brilliant  assembly.  Hearty  congratulations  ;  "  and  at  the 
same  time  one  from  the  President's  daughter  :  "  To  his 
Majesty  the  Kaiser,  Berlin — Meteor  successfully  launched. 
I  congratulate  you,  thank  you  for  the  kindness  shown 
me,  and  send  you  my  best  wishes.  Alice  Roosevelt." 

During  the  visit  the  Emperor  cabled  to  President 
Roosevelt  his  thanks  and  that  of  his  people  for  the 
hospitable  reception  of  his  brother  by  all  classes,  adding  : 
"  My  outstretched  hand  was  grasped  by  you  with  a 
strong,  manly,  and  friendly  grip.  May  Heaven  bless  the 
relations  of  the  two  nations  with  peace  and  goodwill  ! 
My  best  compliments  and  wishes  to  Alice  Roosevelt." 

Reference  to  this  cordial  electric  correspondence  may 
close  with  mention  of  a  telegram  sent  in  reply  to  a 
message?  from  Mr.  Melville  Stone,  of  the  American 
Associated  Press  :  "  Accept  my  thanks  for  your  message. 
I  estimate  the  great  and  sympathetic  reception  (it  was  a 
banquet)  given  to  my  dear  brother  by  the  newspaper 
proprietors  of  the  United  States  very  highly."  Prince 
Henry  returned  to  Germany  on  March  iyth,  a  Doctor  of 
Law  of  Harvard  University. 

There  have  been  moments  when  people  in  America 
were  influenced  by  other  sentiments  than  those  of 
entirely  respectful  admiration  for  the  Emperor.  It  was 
with  mixed  feelings  that  the  American  public  heard 
the  news  of  his  telegraphed  offer  to  President  Roosevelt 
in  May,  1902,  when,  as  the  telegram  said,  the  Emperor 
was  "  under  the  deep  impression  made  by  the  brilliant 
and  cordial  reception "  given  to  his  brother,  Prince 
Henry,  to  present  to  the  American  nation  a  statue  of — 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  coupled  with  the  offer  a  pro- 
posal that  the  statue  should  be  erected — of  all  places — in 
Washington  !  No  one  doubted  the  Emperor's  sincere 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  243 

desire  to  pay  the  highest  compliment  he  could  think  of 
to  a  people  to  whom  he  felt  grateful  for  the  honour  done 
to  Germany  in  the  person  of  his  brother,  but  nearly 
every  one  smiled  at  the  simplicity,  or,  as  some  called  it, 
the  want  of  political  tact  shown  by  offering  the  statue  of 
a  ruler  whose  name,  to  the  vast  majority  of  Americans, 
is  synonymous  with  absolute  autocracy,  to  a  republic 
which  prides  itself  on  its  civic  ways  and  love  of  personal 
freedom.  The  gift  was  accepted  by  the  American 
Government  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  offered,  the 
spirit  of  goodwill.  And  why  not  ?  To  the  Emperor  his 
great  ancestor's  effigy  is  no  symbol  of  autocracy,  but  the 
contrary,  for  to  the  Emperor  and  his  subjects  Frederick 
the  Great  is  as  much  the  Father  of  Prussia,  the  man  who 
saved  it  and  made  it,  as  Washington  was  the  Father  of 
America.  Besides,  the  spirit  in  which  a  gift  is  offered,  not 
its  value  or  appropriateness,  is  the  thing  to  be  considered. 

Irritation  in  England  was  still  strong  against  Germany 
on  account  of  the  latter's  easily  understood  race-sympathy 
with  the  Boers  during  the  war  just  over,  but  the  fact 
did  not  prevent  the  Emperor  from  accepting  King 
Edward's  invitation  to  spend  a  few  days  at  Sandringham 
with  him  in  November  this  year  on  the  occasion  of 
his  birthday.  The  Emperor  took  the  Empress  and  two 
of  his  sons  with  him.  The  hostile  temper  of  the  time, 
both  in  England  and  Germany,  was  alluded  to  in  a 
sermon  preached  in  Sandringham  Church  by  the  then 
Bishop  of  London.  It  was  notable  for  its  insistence  on 
the  necessity  of  friendlier  relations  between  England, 
Germany,  and  America,  the  three  great  branches  of  the 
Teutonic  race.  After  the  service  the  Emperor  is  reported 
to  have  exclaimed  to  the  Bishop  :  "What  you  said  was 
excellent,  and  is  precisely  what  I  try  to  make  my  people 
understand." 

As  a  proof  that  this  was  no  merely  complimentary 
utterance,  but  the  expression  of  a  thought  which  is 


244  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

constantly  in  the  Emperor's  mind,  an  incident  which 
happened  at  Kiel  regatta  in  the  month  of  June  previously 
may  be  recalled.  The  American  squadron,  under  the 
late  Admiral  Cotton,  was  paying  an  official  visit  to  the 
Emperor  during  the  Kiel  "  week "  as  a  return  honour 
for  the  visit  of  the  Emperor's  brother,  Prince  Henry  of 
Prussia,  to  the  United  States  the  year  before.  There 
was  a  constant  round  of  festivities,  and  among  them 
a  lunch  to  the  Emperor  on  board  the  Admiral's  flagship, 
the  Kearsarge.  Lunch  over,  the  Emperor  was  standing 
in  a  group  talking  with  his  customary  vivacity,  but,  as 
customary  also,  with  his  eyes  taking  in  his  surroundings 
like  a  well-trained  journalist.  Suddenly  he  noticed  a 
set  of  flags,  those  of  America,  Germany,  and  England, 
twined  together  and  mingling  their  colours  in  friendly 
harmony.  He  walked  over,  gathered  the  combined  flags 
in  his  hand,  and  turning  to  the  Admiral  exclaimed  in 
idiomatic  American  :  "  See  here,  Admiral ;  that  is  exactly 
as  it  should  be,  and  is  what  I  am  trying  for  all  the  time." 

While  in  England  the  Emperor,  in  company  with 
Lord  Roberts  and  Sir  Evelyn  Wood,  inspected  his 
English  regiment,  the  ist  Royal  Dragoons.  A  curious 
and  amusing  feature  of  the  visit  was  a  lecture  before 
the  Royal  Family  at  Sandringham  by  a  German  engineer, 
for  whom  the  Emperor  acted  as  interpreter,  on  a  novel 
adaptation  of  spirit  for  culinary,  lighting,  and  laundry 
purposes.  The  Emperor's  practical  illustration  of  the 
use  of  the  new  heating  system,  as  applied  to  the  ordinary 
household  flatiron,  is  said  to  have  caused  great  merri- 
ment among  his  audience. 

Germany's  home  atmosphere  about  this  time  was  for 
a  moment  troubled  by  an  exihibition  of  the  Emperor's 
"  personal  regiment "  in  the  form  of  a  telegram  to  the 
Prince  Regent  of  Bavaria,  known  in  Germany  as  the 
"  Swinemunde  Despatch."  The  Bavarian  Diet,  in  a  fit 
of  economy,  had  refused  its  annual  grant  of  ^5,000 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  245 

for  art  purposes.  The  Emperor  was  violently  angry, 
wired  to  the  Prince  Regent  his  indignation  with  the 
Diet,  and  offered  to  pay  the  ^5,000  out  of  his  own 
pocket.  It  was  not  a  very  tactful  offer,  to  be  sure, 
though  well  intended  ;  and  as  his  telegram  was  not  an 
act  of  State,  "covered"  by  the  Chancellor's  signature, 
while  the  Bavarians  in  particular  felt  hurt  at  what  they 
considered  outside  interference,  Germans  generally 
blamed  it  as  a  new  demonstration  of  autocratic  rule. 

One  or  two  other  art  incidents  of  the  period  may  be 
noted.  A  domestic  one  was  the  gift  to  the  Emperor 
by  the  Empress  of  a  model  of  her  hand  in  Carrara 
marble,  life-sized,  by  the  German  sculptor,  Rheinhold 
Begas.  The  Emperor,  it  is  well  known,  has  no  special 
liking  for  the  companionship  of  ladies,  but  he  confesses 
to  an  admiration  for  pretty  feminine  hands.  Another 
incident  was  the  Emperor's  order  to  the  painter, 
Professor  Rochling,  to  paint  a  picture  representing  the 
famous  episode  in  the  China  campaign,  when  Admiral 
Seymour  gave  the  order  "Germans  to  the  Front."  It 
is  to  the  present  day  a  popular  German  engraving. 
The  year  was  also  remarkable  for  a  visit  to  Berlin  of 
Coquelin  aine,  the  great  French  actor.  The  Emperor 
saw  him  in  "  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,"  was,  like  all  the 
rest  of  the  play-going  world,  delighted  with  both  play 
and  player,  and  held  a  long  and  lively  conversation 
with  the  artist.  Lastly  may  be  mentioned  a  telegram 
of  the  Emperor's  to  the  once-famed  tragic  actress, 
Adelaide  Ristori,  in  Rome,  congratulating  her  on  her 
eightieth  birthday  and  expressing  his  regret  that  he  had 
never  met  her.  A  basket  of  flowers  simultaneously 
arrived  from  the  German  Embassy. 

We  are  now  in  1903.  During  the  preceding  years  the 
Emperor's  thoughts,  as  has  been  seen,  were  occupied 
with  art  as  a  means  of  educating  his  folk,  purifying  their 
sentiments,  and,  above  all,  making  them  faithful  lieges 


246          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

of  the  House  of  Hohenzollern.  By  a  natural  association 
of  ideas  we  find  him  this  year  thinking  much  and  deeply 
about  religion  ;  for,  though  artists  are  not  a  species  re- 
markable for  the  depth  or  orthodoxy  of  their  views  on 
religious  matters,  art  and  religion  are  close  allies,  and 
probably  the  greater  the  artist  the  more  real  religion  he 
will  be  found  to  have. 

In  this  year,  accordingly,  the  Emperor  made  his  re- 
markable confession  of  religious  faith  to  his  friend, 
Admiral  Hollmann.  He  had  just  heard  a  lecture  by 
Professor  Delitzsch  on  "  Babel  und  Bibel,"  and  as  he 
considered  the  Professor's  views  to  some  extent  sub- 
versive of  orthodox  Christian  belief,  he  took  the  oppor- 
tunity to  tell  his  people  his  own  sentiments  on  the  whole 
matter.  In  writing  to  Admiral  Hollmann  he  instructed 
him  to  make  the  "  confession  "  as  public  as  possible,  and 
it  was  published  in  the  October  number  of  the  Grenz- 
boten,  a  Saxon  monthly,  sometimes  used  for  official 
pronouncements.  The  Emperor's  letter  to  Admiral 
Hollmann  contained  what  follows  : — 

"  I  distinguish  between  two  different  sorts  of  Revelation  :  a 
current,  to  a  certain  extent  historical,  and  a  purely  religious,  which 
was  meant  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  appearance  of  the  Messiah. 
As  to  the  first,  I  should  say  that  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that 
God  eternally  revealed  Himself  to  the  race  of  mankind  He  created. 
He  breathed  into  man  His  breath,  that  is  a  portion  of  Himself,  a 
soul.  With  fatherly  love  and  interest  He  followed  the  development 
of  humanity  ;  in  order  to  lead  and  encourage  it  further  He  '  re- 
vealed' Himself,  now  in  the  person  of  this,  now  of  that  great  wise 
man,  priest  or  king,  whether  pagan,  Jew  or  Christian.  Hammu- 
rabi was  one  of  these,  Moses,  Abraham,  Homer,  Charlemagne, 
Luther,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Kant,  Kaiser  William  the  Great — 
these  He  selected  and  honoured  with  His  Grace,  to  achieve  for 
their  peoples,  according  to  His  will,  things  noble  and  imperishable. 
How  often  has  not  my  grandfather  explicitly  declared  that  he  was 
an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord  !  The  works  of  great  souls 
are  the  gifts  of  God  to  the  people,  that  they  may  be  able  to  build 
further  on  them  as  models,  that  they  may  be  able  to  feel  further 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  247 

through  the  confusion  of  the  undiscovered  here  below.  Doubtless 
God  has  '  revealed '  Himself  to  different  peoples  in  different  ways 
according  to  their  situation  and  the  degree  of  their  civilization. 
Then  just  as  we  are  overborne  most  by  the  greatness  and  might 
of  the  lovely  nature  of  the  Creation  when  we  regard  it,  and  as  we 
look  are  astonished  at  the  greatness  of  God  there  displayed,  even 
so  can  we  of  a  surety  thankfully  and  admiringly  recognize,  by 
whatever  truly  great  or  noble  thing  a  man  or  a  people  does,  the 
revelation  of  God.  His  influence  acts  on  us  and  among  us 
directly. 

"  The  second  sort  of  Revelation,  the  more  religious  sort,  is  that 
which  led  up  to  the  appearance  of  the  Lord.  From  Abraham 
onward  it  was  introduced,  slowly  but  foreseeingly,  ail-wisely  and 
ail-knowingly,  for  otherwise  humanity  were  lost.  And  now  com- 
mences the  astonishing  working  of  God's  Revelation.  The  race  of 
Abraham  and  the  peoples  that  sprang  from  it  regard,  with  an  iron 
logic,  as  their  holiest  possession,  the  belief  in  a  God.  They  must 
worship  and  cultivate  Him.  Broken  up  during  the  captivity  in 
Egypt,  the  separated  parts  were  brought  together  again  for  the 
second  time  by  Moses,  always  striving  to  cling  fast  to  monotheism. 
It  was  the  direct  intervention  of  God  that  caused  this  people  to 
come  to  life  again.  And  so  it  goes  on  through  the  centuries  till 
the  Messiah,  announced  and  foreshadowed  by  the  prophets  and 
psalmists,  at  last  appears,  the  greatest  Revelation  of  God  to  the 
world.  Then  he  appeared  in  the  Son  Himself ;  Christ  is  God  ; 
God  in  human  form.  He  redeemed  us,  He  spurs  us  on,  He  allures 
us  to  follow  Him,  we  feel  His  fire  burn  in  us,  His  sympathy 
strengthens  us,  His  displeasure  annihilates  us,  but  also  His  care 
saves  us.  Confident  of  victory,  building  only  on  His  word,  we 
pass  through  labour,  scorn,  suffering,  misery  and  death,  for  in  His 
Word  we  have  God's  revealed  Word,  and  He  never  lies. 

"  That  is  my  view  of  the  matter.  The  Word  is  especially  for  us 
evangelicals  made  the  essential  thing  by  Luther,  and  as  good  theo- 
logian surely  Delitzsch  must  not  forget  that  our  great  Luther  taught 
us  to  sing  and  believe — 'Thou  shalt  suffer,  let  the  Word  stand.' 
To  me  it  goes  without  saying  that  the  Old  Testament  contains  a 
large  number  of  fragments  of  a  purely  human  historical  kind  and 
not '  God's  revealed  Word.'  They  are  mere  historical  descriptions 
of  events  of  all  sorts  which  occurred  in  the  political,  religious, 
moral,  and  intellectual  life  of  the  people  of  Israel.  For  example, 
the  act  of  legislation  on  Sinai  may  be  regarded  as  only  symbolically 
inspired  by  God,  when  Moses  had  recourse  to  the  revival  of  perhaps 
some  old-time  law  (possibly  the  codex,  an  offshoot  of  the  codex  of 


WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Hammurabi),  to  bring  together  and  to  bind  together  institutions 
of  His  people  which  were  become  shaky  and  incapable  of  resis- 
tance. Here  the  historian  can,  from  the  spirit  or  the  text,  perhaps 
construct  a  connexion  with  the  Law  of  Hammurabi,  the  friend  of 
Abraham,  and  perhaps  logically  enough  ;  but  that  would  no  way 
lessen  the  importance  of  the  fact  that  God  suggested  it  to  Moses, 
and  in  so  far  revealed  Himself  to  the  Israelite  people. 

"  Consequently  it  is  my  idea  that  for  the  future  our  good  Professor 
would  do  well  to  avoid  treating  of  religion  as  such,  on  the  other 
hand  continue  to  describe  unmolested  everything  that  connects 
the  religion,  manners,  and  custom  of  the  Babylonians  with  the  Old 
Testament.  On  the  whole,  I  make  the  following  deductions : — 

"  i.  I  believe  in  One  God. 

"  2.  We  humans  need,  in  order  to  teach  Him,  a  Form,  especially 
for  our  children. 

"3.  This  Form  has  been  to  the  present  time  the  Old  Testament 
in  its  existing  tradition.  This  Form  will  certainly  decidedly  alter 
considerably  with  the  discovery  of  inscriptions  and  excavations ; 
there  is  nothing  harmful  in  that,  it  is  even  no  harm  if  the  nimbus 
of  the  Chosen  People  loses  much  thereby.  The  kernel  and  sub- 
stance remain  always  the  same — God,  namely,  and  His  work. 

"  Never  was  religion  a  result  of  science,  but  a  gushing  out  of  the 
heart  and  being  of  mankind,  springing  from  its  intercourse  with 
God." 

It  is  anticipating  by  a  few  months,  but  part  of  a  speech 
the  Emperor  made  in  Potsdam  at  the  confirmation  of 
his  two  sons,  August  Wilhelm  and  Oscar — two  Hohen- 
zollerns  as  yet  not  distinguished  for  anything  in  par- 
ticular— may  be  quoted  in  this  connexion.  Naturally  he 
began  by  comparing  his  sons'  spiritual  situation  with  that 
of  a  soldier  on  the  day  he  takes  the  oath  of  allegiance  : 
they  were  vorgonerkt,  that  is,  predestined  as  "  fighters 
for  Christ."  "  What  is  demanded  of  you,"  the  imperial 
father  went  on,  "  is  that  you  shall  be  personalities.  This 
is  the  point  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  most  important 
for  the  Christian  in  daily  life.  For  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  we  can  say  of  the  person  of  the  Lord,  that 
He  is  the  most  "personal  personality"  who  has  ever 
wandered  among  the  sons  of  men.  .  .  .  You  will  read 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  249 

of  many  great  men — savants,  statesmen,  kings  and 
princes,  of  poets  also  :  but  nevertheless  no  word  of  man 
has  ever  been  uttered  worthy  of  comparison  with  the 
words  of  Christ ;  and  I  say  this  to  you  so  that  you  may 
be  in  a  position  to  bear  it  out  when  you  are  in  the  midst 
of  life's  turmoil  and  hear  people  discussing  religion, 
especially  the  personality  of  Christ.  No  word  of  man 
has  ever  succeeded  in  making  people  of  all  races  and 
all  people  enthusiastic  for  the  same  cause,  namely,  to 
imitate  Him,  even  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  Him.  The 
wonder  can  only  be  explained  by  assuming  that  what 
He  said  were  the  words  of  the  living  God,  which  are  the 
source  of  life,  and  continue  to  live  thousands  of  years 
after  the  words  of  the  wise  have  been  forgotten.  That 
is  my  personal  experience  and  it  will  be  yours. 

"The  pivot  and  turning-point,"  he  continued,  "of  our 
mortal  life,  especially  of  a  life  full  of  responsibility  and 
labour — that  is  clearer  and  clearer  to  me  every  year  I 
live — lies  simply  and  solely  in  the  attitude  a  man  adopts 
towards  his  Lord  and  Saviour  ; "  and  he  concludes  by 
exhorting  his  sons  to  disregard  what  people  may  say 
about  the  cult  of  Christ  being  irreconcilable  with  the 
tasks  and  responsibilities  of  "  modern "  life,  but  simply 
to  do  their  best,  whatever  their  occupation,  to  become  a 
personality  after  Christ's  example. 

This  is  a  sound  and  just  statement  of  Christian  faith, 
and  it  is  quoted  here  to  justify  the  view  that  the 
Emperor's  soldiers  and  his  Dreadnoughts,  his  mailed 
fist  and  shining  armour,  are  built  and  put  on  in  the 
spirit  of  precaution  and  defence.  The  attitude,  it  cannot 
of  course  be  denied,  is  based  on  the  im-Christlike  as- 
sumption that  all  men  (and  particularly  all  peoples  and 
their  governments  and  diplomatists)  are  liars ;  but  in  his 
favour  it  may  be  urged  that  for  that  saying  the  Emperor 
could  cite  Biblical  authority.  And  yet  there  is  an  incon- 
sistency ;  for  the  saying  is  that  of  one  of  those  same  wise 


250 

men  whose  words,  the  Emperor  admits,  are  transitory 
and  mortal. 

It  is  possible  that  the  Emperor  had  a  presentiment  of 
some  kind  that  his  life  was  now  in  danger,  and  that  the 
presentiment  may  have  attuned  his  thoughts  to  medita- 
tion on  Christ's  life  and  teaching ;  for  it  is  a  fact,  well 
worthy  of  remark,  that  in  the  fear  of  death  man's  one 
and  only  relief  and  consolation  is  the  knowledge  that 
there  was,  and  is,  a  mediator  for  him  with  his  Creator. 
The  address  at  his  sons'  confirmation  was  delivered  on 
October  lyth,  and  on  Sunday  morning,  November  8th  all 
the  world,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  was  astonished  and 
pained  to  learn,  by  a  publication  in  the  Official  Gazette, 
that  the  Emperor  the  day  before  had  had  to  submit  to 
a  serious  operation  on  his  throat.  The  announcement 
spoke  of  a  polypus,  or  fungoid  growth,  which  had  had  to 
be  removed  ;  but  all  over  the  world  the  conclusion  was 
come  to  that  the  mortal  affliction  of  the  father  had 
fallen  on  the  son  and  that  the  Emperor  was  a  doomed 
man.  Most  providentially  and  happily  it  was  nothing  of 
the  sort.  On  the  Qth  the  Emperor  was  out  of  bed  and 
signing  official  papers,  on  the  I5th  he  was  allowed  to  talk 
in  whispers,  and  on  the  iyth  it  was  declared  by  the 
physicians  that  all  danger  was  over  and  that  no  more 
bulletins  would  be  issued.  On  December  i4th  the 
Emperor  received  a  congratulatory  visit  from  the 
President  of  the  Reichstag,  who  reported  to  Parliament 
his  impression  that  "the  Emperor  had  completely 
recovered  his  old  vigour  (great  applause)  and  that  his 
voice  was  again  clear  and  strong." 

The  Emperor  had  passed  through  what  one  may 
suppose  to  have  been  the  darkest  hour  of  his  life.  He 
was  naturally  in  high  spirits,  and  a  few  days  after  went 
to  Hannover,  where  he  made  a  martial  speech  in  which 
he  toasted  the  German  Legion  for  having  "  by  its  unfor- 
gettable heroism,  in  conjunction  with  Bliicher  and  his 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  251 

Prussians,  saved  the  English  army  from  destruction  at 
Waterloo,"  a  view,  of  course,  which  to  an  Englishman 
has  all  the  charm  of  novelty. 

One  or  two  further  memorable  incidents  of  1903  may 
be  recorded.  Theodore  Mommsen,  the  now  aged 
historian  of  Rome,  the  greatest  scholar  of  his  time, 
died  in  November.  He  was  in  his  day  a  Liberal 
parliamentarian  of  no  mean  ability  ;  but  for  such  men 
there  is  no  career  in  Germany.  However,  as  it  turned 
out,  the  German  people's  loss  proved  to  be  all  the 
world's  gain.  A  son  of  the  historian  now  represents 
a  district  of  Berlin  in  the  Reichstag.  Two  years  before 
the  historian's  death  an  exchange  of  telegrams  in  Latin 
took  place  between  him  and  the  Emperor.  The  occasion 
was  the  Emperor's  laying  the  foundation-stone  of  a 
museum  on  the  plateau  where  the  old  Roman  castle, 
known  as  the  Saalburg,  stands.  The  Emperor  tele- 
graphed :  "Theodoro  Mommseno,  antiquitatum  roman- 
arum  investigatori  incomparabili,  praetorii  Saalburgensis 
fundamenta  jaciens  salutem  dicit  et  gratias  agit  Guilelmus 
Germanorum  Imperator."  To  which  the  historian,  with 
a  modesty  equal  to  his  courtesy,  replied  :  "  Germanorum 
principi,  tam  maj  estate  quam  humanitate,  gratias  agit 
antiquarius  Lietzelburgensis." 

Mention  may  also  be  made  of  a  very  characteristic 
speech  of  the  Emperor's  this  year  at  Ciistrin,  where  he 
was  unveiling  a  monument  to  a  favourite  Hohenzollern, 
the  Great  Elector.  Ciistrin,  it  will  .be  remembered,  is 
the  town  where  Frederick  the  Great,  another  of  the 
Emperor's  favourites,  was  imprisoned  by  an  angry  father, 
along  with  his  friend  Lieutenant  Katte,  when  Frederick 
was  trying  to  escape  the  parental  cruelty  and  violence. 

Referring  to  Frederick's  declaration  that  he  was  the 
"  first  servant  of  the  State,"  the  Emperor  said  : — 

"  He  could  only  learn  to  be  so  by  subordination,  by 
obedience,  in  a  word  by  what  we  Prussians  describe  as 


252  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

discipline.  And  this  discipline  must  have  its  roots  in  the 
King's  house  as  in  the  house  of  the  citizen,  in  the  army 
as  among  the  people.  Respect  for  authority,  obedience 
to  the  Crown,  and  obedience  to  parental  and  paternal 
influence — that  is  the  lesson  the  memories  of  to-day 
should  teach  us.  From  these  attributes  spring  those 
which  we  call  patriotism,  namely  the  subordination  of 
the  individual  ego,  of  the  individual  subject,  to  the 
welfare  of  all.  It  is  what  is  particularly  needed  at  the 
present  time."  The  Emperor  was,  of  course,  thinking  of 
the  Social  Democrats.  Having  finished  his  speech,  he 
went  and  for  a  while  stood  thoughtfully  at  the  historic 
window  of  Ciistrin  Castle,  from  which  Frederick  watched 
the  execution  of  his  unfortunate  companion,  Katte. 

Only  the  year  1904  separates  us  from  the  Emperor's 
Morocco  adventure.  The  economic  ideas  which  have 
been  referred  to  as  the  basis  of  German  foreign  policy 
were  germinating  in  his  mind,  and  the  plans  for  at  least 
a  partial  realization  of  them  were  working  in  his  head. 
Addressing  the  chief  burgomaster  of  Karlsruhe  in  April, 
just  a  year  before  he  started  for  Tangier,  he  spoke  of 
Weltpolitik.  "  You  are  right,"  he  told  the  burgomaster, 
"  in  saying  that  the  task  of  the  German  people  is  a  hard 
one.  ...  I  hope  our  peace  will  not  be  disturbed,  and  that 
the  events  that  are  now  happening  will  open  our  eyes, 
steel  our  courage,  and  find  us  united,  if  it  should  be 
necessary  for  us  to  intervene  in  world-policy." 

The  Emperor  had,  no  doubt,  specially  in  mind  the 
birth  of  the  Anglo-French  Entente  and  the  war  between 
Russia  and  Japan,  both  events  forming  the  dominant 
factors  of  the  political  situation  at  this  time. 

The  Russo-Japanese  War  arose  primarily  from  the 
unwillingness  of  Russia  to  evacuate  Manchuria  after  the 
Boxer  troubles  in  China.  The  incidents  of  the  war  are 
still  fresh  in  public  memory. 

It  need  only  be  recalled  here  that  Germany  was  neutral 


THE    NEW   CENTURY  253 

throughout  the  conflict,  that  both  President  Roosevelt 
and  the  Emperor  offered  their  services  as  mediators  in  its 
course,  and  that  on  the  capture  of  Port  Arthur  by  Admiral 
Nogi,  in  January,  1905,  the  Emperor  telegraphed  his 
bestowal  of  the  Ordre  pour  le  Merits  on  General  Stoessel, 
the  Russian  defender  of  Port  Arthur,  and  on  Admiral 
Nogi. 

In  the  troubled  history  of  Anglo-German  relations  is  to 
be  recorded  the  presence,  in  June  of  this  year,  of  King 
Edward  VII  at  Kiel  with  a  squadron  of  battleships  to 
pay  an  official  visit  to  his  nephew.  The  two  fleets,  those 
sunny  days,  formed  a  splendid  spectacle — the  two 
mightiest  police  forces,  the  Emperor  would  probably 
agree  in  saying,  the  world  could  produce.  In  fact,  the 
Emperor  had  some  such  thought  in  mind,  for  he 
addressed  King  Edward  as  follows  : — 

"Your  Majesty  has  been  welcomed  by  the  thunder  of 
the  guns  of  the  German  fleet.  It  is  the  youngest  navy  in 
the  world  and  an  expression  of  the  reviving  sea-power 
of  the  new  German  Empire,  founded  by  the  late  great 
Emperor,  designed  for  the  protection  of  the  Empire's 
trade  and  territory,  and  intended,  equally  with  the 
German  army,  for  the  preservation  of  peace." 

One  or  two  other  incidents  of  interest  in  the  Emperor's 
life  may  close  the  record  of  this  year.  One  of  them  was 
the  arrival  of  the  Italian  composer,  Leoncavallo,  in 
Berlin,  to  hand  the  Emperor  the  text  of  the  opera  "  Der 
Roland  von  Berlin,"  Leoncavallo  had  composed  at  the 
Emperor's  express  request.  Roland  was  a  "  strong, 
valiant  and  pious"  knight  of  Charlemagne's  time — like 
the  Emperor,  let  us  say — who  originally  hailed  from 
Brittany — that  lone  and  lovely  Cinderella  of  France — 
and  afterwards,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  came  to 
be  the  type  of  municipal  independence  in  Germany. 

During  the  summer  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress 
made  an  excursion,  when  on  the  Saalburg,  to  the  statues 


254 

of  the  Roman  Emperors  Hadrian  and  Severus.  Did  the 
Emperor  recall,  one  wonders,  as  he  stood  before  the 
figure  of  Hadrian,  that  pagan  monarch's  address  to  his 
soul  : — 

"Animula  vagula,  blandula, 
Hospes,  comesque  corporis, 
Quae  nunc  abibis  in  loca, 
Pallidula,  rigida,  nudula, 
Nee,  ut  soles,  dabis  jocos?" 

It  sounds  a  little  gloomy  as  a  quotation,  but,  fortunately 
for  Germany  and  the  Emperor,  for  "  nunc "  can  be 
put,  pace  the  poet,  the  indefinite,  yet  all  too  definite, 
"  aliquando." 


XII 

MOROCCO 

1905 

THE  Emperor  started  for  Tangier  towards  the  end 
of   March,  but  before  that  he  had  got  through 
imperial  business  of  a  miscellaneous  kind  which 
exemplifies  the  life  he  leads  practically  at  all  times. 

In  January  he  had  exchanged  telegrams  with  the  Czar 
and  the  Mikado  concerning  his  bestowal  of  the  Order  of 
Merit  on  Generals  Stoessel  and  Nogi,  asking  permission 
to  bestow  the  Order  and  receiving  expressions  of  consent. 
Another  telegram  went  to  the  composer  Leoncavallo  in 
Naples,  congratulating  him  on  the  success  there  of  his 
"Roland  von  Berlin."  In  February, the  Emperor  opened 
an  international  Automobile  Exhibition  in  Berlin,  received 
Prince  Charles,  Infanta  of  Spain,  and  the  King  of  Bulgaria, 
unveiled  a  monument  to  his  ancestor,  Admiral  Coligny, 
who  was  killed  in  the  Bartholomew  massacre,  listened  to 
a  naval  captain's  lecture  on  Port  Arthur,  opened  the  new 
Lutheran  Cathedral  (the  "  Dom  ")  in  Berlin,  telegraphed 
thanks  to  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  for  its  doctor's 
degree  which  the  Emperor  said  he  was  proud  to  know 
George  Washington  once  held,  attended  a  lecture  by 
Professor  Delitzsch  on  "  Assyria,"  and  was  present  at 
a  memorial  service  for  the  painter  Adolf  von  Menzel, 
who  died  this  month.  In  March  he  visited  Heligoland, 
inspected  the  progress  of  some  alterations  at  the  Royal 
Opera  in  Berlin,  and  sent  the  Gold  Medal  for  Science  to 

255 
• 


256  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Manuel  Garcia,  on  the  occasion  of  the  latter's  hundredth 
birthday,  as  recognition  of  his  invention  of  the  laryngo- 
scope, or  mirror  for  examining  the  throat. 

Just  before  starting  for  Morocco  the  Emperor  made 
the  speech  in  which  he  claimed  that  Germans  are  the 
"salt  of  the  earth."  In  the  same  speech  he  had  previously 
declared  that  as  the  result  of  his  reading  of  history  he 
meant  never  to  strive  after  world-conquest.  "  For  what," 
he  asked,  "  has  become  of  the  so-called  world-empires  ? 
Alexander  the  Great,  Napoleon  the  First,  all  the  great 
warrior  heroes  swam  in  blood  and  left  behind  them 
subjugated  peoples,  who  at  the  first  opportunity  rose 
and  brought  their  empires  to  ruin.  The  world-empire 
which  I  dream  of  will  be,  above  all,  the  newly  estab- 
lished German  Empire,  enjoying  on  every  side  the  most 
absolute  confidence  as  a  peaceable,  honest,  and  quiet 
neighbour,  not  founded  on  conquest  by  the  sword, 
but  on  the  mutual  confidence  of  nations,  striving  for  the 
same  objects." 

While  on  the  way  to  Morocco  the  Emperor  put  in  at 
Lisbon  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  King  of  Portugal,  and  with 
the  latter  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Geographical 
Society.  From  Lisbon  he  went  to  Gibraltar,  and  from 
thence,  after  a  few  hours'  stay,  he  started  for  Tangier. 

The  Morocco  incident,  as  it  is  often  too  lightly  called, 
should  rather  be  regarded  as  a  phase  in  the  world's 
economic  history  and  an  occurrence  of  moment  for  the 
future  peace  of  all  nations  than  the  mere  game  on  the 
diplomatic  chess-board  many  writers  appear  to  consider 
it.  According  to  French  critics,  and  they  may  be  taken 
as  representative  of  the  feeling  everywhere  prevalent 
during  the  seven  years  the  incident  lasted,  its  origin  was 
a  matter  of  alliances  and  the  balance  of  power.  Germany, 
according  to  these  writers,  wanted  to  preserve  the  position 
of  hegemony  in  Europe  she  had  obtained  under  Bismarck, 
and  consequently  felt  annoyed  by  the  Triple  Entente, 


MOROCCO  257 

which  robbed  her  of  her  traditional  friend  Russia  and 
set  up  an  effective  counterpoise  to  the  Triple  Alliance  of 
which  Germany  was  the  leading  Power,  and  on  which 
she  could,  or  believed  she  could,  rely  for  support  in  case 
of  war  with  France.  In  going,  therefore,  to  Tangier,  at 
the  moment  when  her  defeat  by  Japan  rendered  Russia 
for  the  time  being  of  little  or  no  account  in  the  con- 
siderations of  diplomacy,  the  Emperor,  according  to 
these  writers,  in  reality  was  making  a  determined  attempt 
to  break  the  Entente  combination  and  protect  his  Empire 
from  political  isolation  or  inferiority. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  such  were  the  motives  of  the 
Emperor's  action,  but  if  so  he  was  building  better  than 
he  knew.  The  vicissitudes  of  the  Moroccan  episode  are 
described  briefly  below,  yet  some  remarks  of  a  general 
nature  as  to  the  whole  episode  considered  in  its  historical 
perspective  may  be  permitted  in  advance.  But  first,  what 
is  historical  perspective  ?  It  may  perhaps  be  defined  as 
that  view  of  history  which  shows  in  its  true  proportions 
the  relative  importance  of  an  event  to  other  events  which 
strongly  and  permanently  leave  their  mark  on  the 
character  and  development  of  the  period  or  generation 
in  which  they  occur.  Regarded  from  this  standpoint  the 
Morocco  incident  can  claim  an  exceptional  position,  for 
it  was  the  first  occasion  in  modern  diplomatic  history  on 
which  a  Great  Power  officially  proclaimed  urbi  et  orbi 
the  doctrine  of  the  "  open  door,"  the  doctrine  of  equal 
economic  treatment  for  all  nations  for  the  benefit  of  all 
nations,  and  was  willing  to  go  to  war  in  support  of  it. 

It  was  not,  of  course,  the  first  time  the  demand  for  the 
open  door  had  been  made ;  loudly  and  bloodily,  too  ; 
since  most  wars  from  those  of  Greece  and  Rome  to  the 
war  between  Russia  and  Japan  of  recent  years  were 
waged  with  the  intention,  or  in  the  hope,  of  opening,  by 
conquest  or  contract,  territory  of  the  enemy  to  the 
mercantile  enterprise  of  the  victors.  But  this  was  the 


258  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

open  door  in  a  very  selfish  and  restricted  sense,  and 
though  many  isolated  events  had  occurred  of  late  years, 
the  international  agreements  regarding  China  among 
them,  proving  that  the  idea  of  the  open  door  was 
gaining  strength  as  a  right  common  to  all  nations,  it 
was  not  until  the  Emperor  went  to  Tangier  that  a  Great 
Power  risked  a  great  war  in  order  to  exemplify  and 
enforce  it. 

The  Emperor  and  his  advisers  were  probably  not 
moved  by  any  altruistic  sentiments  in  the  matter,  and 
their  sole  reason  for  action  may  have  been  to  see  that 
German  subjects  should  not  be  excluded  from  Moroccan 
markets.  It  may  also  be  that  Germany  was  resolved  that 
if  there  was  to  be  a  seizure  of  Morocco  she  should  get 
her  share  of  the  territory  to  be  distributed,  notwithstand- 
ing her  refusal,  revealed  by  the  late  Foreign  Secretary, 
Kiderlen-Waechter,  in  the  Reichstag's  confidential  com- 
mittee, to  accede  to  Mr.  Chamberlain's  proposal,  made 
some  time  before  the  incident,  for  a  partition  of  the 
Shereefian  Empire.  But  the  acquisition  of  territory  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  the  mainspring  of  her  policy, 
while  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  incident, 
however  theatrical  and  questionable  her  diplomatic 
conduct  may  have  been  at  moments  during  the  negotia- 
tions, she  was  throughout  consistent  and  successful  in 
her  demand  for  economic  equality  all  round.  This  is 
a  great  gain  for  the  future,  for,  with  the  world  nearly  all 
parcelled  out,  economic  considerations,  which  are  almost 
in  all  cases  adjustable,  are  now  the  most  weighty  factors 
in  international  relations. 

Apart  from  this  view  of  the  incident,  it  is  clear  that 
Germany  was  pursuing  her  claim  to  a  "place  in  the  sun," 
and  she  did  so  to  the  unconcealed  annoyance  of  nations 
which  up  to  then  had  never  thought  of  her  in  a  role  she 
appeared  to  be  aspiring  to,  that  of  a  Mediterranean 
Power.  To  these  nations  she  seemed  an  intruder  in  a 


MOROCCO  259 

sphere  to  which  she  neither  naturally  nor  rightfully 
belonged.  Evidently  she  had  no  political  or  historical 
claims  in  Morocco,  while  her  commercial  interests  were 
less  than  10  per  cent  of  Morocco  trade. 

A  narration  of  the  incident  may,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience, though  involving  some  anticipation  of  the 
future,  be  dealt  with  in  three  sections  :  from  the  Anglo- 
French  Agreement  of  1904,  and  the  Emperor's  visit  to 
Tangier  in  March,  1905,  to  the  Act  of  Algeciras  a  year 
subsequently  ;  from  the  Act  of  Algeciras  to  the  Franco- 
German  Agreement  of  1909  ;  and  from  that  to  the — let 
it  be  hoped — final  settlement  by  the  Franco-German 
Agreement  of  November  5,  1911. 

The  Anglo-French  Agreement  of  1904  gave  France  a 
free  hand  in  Morocco  in  consideration  of  France  giving 
England  a  similar  position  in  Egypt  and  the  Nile  Valley. 
The  state  of  things  in  Morocco  at  this  time  was  one  of 
discord  and  rebellion.  In  the  midst  of  it,  the  Sultan, 
El  Hassan,  died,  and  was  succeeded  by  Abdul  Aziz,  a 
minor.  On  coming  of  age  Abdul  Aziz  showed  his  inability 
to  rule,  the  country  fell  again  into  disorder  and  Abdul 
turned  for  help  to  France.  Meantime  England  and 
France  had  been  negotiating  without  the  knowledge  of 
Germany,  and  in  April,  1904,  the  Anglo-French  Agree- 
ment was  signed.  It  was  accompanied  by  an  official 
declaration  that  France  had  no  intention  of  changing  the 
political  status  of  Morocco,  but  only  contemplated  a 
policy  there  of  "  pacific  penetration  and  reforms."  There- 
upon Prince  von  Biilow,  the  German  Chancellor,  stated 
in  the  Reichstag  that  the  German  Government  had  no 
reason  to  assume  that  the  Agreement  was  directed  against 
any  Power  and  that  "it  appeared  to  be  an  attempt  by 
England  and  France  to  come  to  a  friendly  understanding 
respecting  their  colonial  differences." 

"  From  the  standpoint  of  German  interests,"  continued 
the  Chancellor,  "  we  have  no  objections  to  raise  to  it," 


26o  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

No  parliamentary  reference  was  made  to  Morocco  until 
March,  1905,  when  the  Chancellor  spoke  of  the  approach- 
ing visit  of  the  Emperor  to  Tangier,  and  it  became 
evident  that  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that,  as  France  seemed  about  assuming  a 
full  protectorate  over  Morocco,  as  she  had  tried  to  do  in 
Tunis,  and  that  this,  in  accordance  with  French  policy, 
would  result  in  the  exclusion  of  other  nationals  from 
commerce  and  the  development  of  the  country,  Germany 
must  take  action.  Prince  von  Biilow  explained  that  "his 
Majesty  had,  in  the  previous  year,  declared  to  the  King 
of  Spain  that  Germany  pursued  no  policy  of  territorial 
acquisition  in  Morocco."  He  continued  :  "  Independent 
of  the  visit,  and  independent  of  the  territorial  question, 
is  the  question  whether  we  have  economic  interests  to 
protect  in  Morocco.  That  we  have  certainly.  We  have 
in  Morocco,  as  in  China,  a  considerable  interest  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  open  door,  that  is  the  equal  treatment 
of  all  trading  nations."  And  he  concluded  by  saying  : 
"So  far  as  an  attempt  is  being  made  to  alter  the  inter- 
national status  of  Morocco,  or  to  control  the  open  door 
in  the  economic  development  of  the  country,  we  must 
see  more  closely  than  before  that  our  economical  interests 
are  not  endangered.  Our  first  step,  accordingly,  is  to  put 
ourselves  into  communication  with  the  Sultan." 

The  visit  came  off  as  announced,  and  the  Emperor, 
on  arriving  at  Tangier,  made  a  speech  which  caused  a 
sensation  in  every  diplomatic  chancellery  ;  indeed,  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  The  Emperor's  speech,  which  was 
addressed  to  the  German  colonists  on  March  31,  1905, 
was  as  follows  : — 

"  I  rejoice  to  make  acquaintance  with  the  pioneers  of 
Germany  in  Morocco  and  to  be  able  to  say  to  them  that 
they  have  done  their  duty.  Germany  has  great  com- 
mercial interests  there.  I  will  promote  and  protect  trade, 
which  shows  a  gratifying  development,  and  make  it  my 


MOROCCO  261 

care  to  secure  full  equality  with  all  nations.  This  is  only 
possible  when  the  sovereignty  of  the  Sultan  and  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  country  are  preserved.  Both  are  for 
Germany  beyond  question,  and  for  that  I  am  ready  at  all 
times  to  answer.  I  think  my  visit  to  Tangier  announces 
this  clearly  and  emphatically,  and  will  doubtless  produce 
the  conviction  that  whatever  Germany  undertakes  in 
Morocco  will  be  negotiated  exclusively  with  the  Sultan." 

The  result  of  these  unmistakable  declarations  was  that 
the  Sultan  rejected  proposals  made  to  him  by  the  French, 
and  shortly  afterwards,  on  the  advice  of  Germany,  came 
forward  with  suggestions  for  a  European  conference. 
M.  Delcasse,  the  French  Foreign  Minister,  opposed  the 
proposal,  and  for  a  time  war  between  France  and 
Germany  appeared  inevitable  ;  but  France  was  not  in 
a  military  position  to  ignore  Germany's  threatening 
language,  M.  Delcasse  had  to  resign,  the  French  Cabinet 
under  M.  Rouvier  agreed  to  the  conference,  and  it  met 
at  Algeciras  in  January,  1906.  At  the  conference  Great 
Britain,  in  consonance  with  the  Entente,  supported 
France  ;  Austria  adhered  loyally  to  her  Triplice  engage- 
ments and  proved  the  "  brilliant  second  "  to  Germany 
the  Emperor  subsequently  described  her  ;  Italy,  on  the 
other  hand,  gave  her  Teutonic  ally  only  lukewarm 
support. 

In  fairness,  however,  should  be  quoted  here  the 
explanation  of  Italy's  attitude  given  by  Chancellor  von 
Billow  when  discussing  the  conference  in  Parliament 
next  year.  The  impression  is  general,  both  in  and  out 
of  Germany,  that  Italy  is  only  a  half-hearted  political 
ally.  It  is  based  on  the  temperamental  difference 
between  the  Latin  and  the  Teutonic  races,  on  the 
popular  sympathy  between  the  French  and  Italian 
peoples,  and  to  the  supposedly  reluctant  support  lent 
by  Italy  to  Germany  during  the  critical  time  of  the 
conference,  the  extra-tour,  as  Prince  Biilow,  using  a 


262  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

metaphor  of  the  ballroom,  termed  it,  she  took  with 
France  on  that  occasion.  Prince  Biilow  now  en- 
deavoured to  dissipate  or  correct  the  impression,  at 
any  rate,  as  regarded  Algeciras.  "Italy,"  he  said,  "found 
herself  in  a  difficult  position  there.  Various  agreements 
between  Italy  and  France  regarding  Morocco  had  come 
into  existence  anterior  to  the  conference,  but  Germany 
was  satisfied  that  they  were  not  inconsistent  with  Italy's 
Triplice  engagements ;  in  fact,  Germany  had,  several 
years  ago,  officially  told  Italy  she  must  use  her  own 
judgment  and  act  on  her  own  responsibility  in  dealing 
with  her  French  neighbour  in  Africa  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean." When  it  was  settled  that  a  conference  should 
be  held,  Italy,  the  Chancellor  continued,  "  gave  Germany 
timely  information  as  to  the  extent  to  which  her  support 
of  Germany  could  go,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  she 
supported  Germany's  views  in  the  bank  and  police 
questions."  So  far  the  German  official  explanation,  but 
the  impression  of  Italian  lukewarmness  as  a  member  of 
the  Triplice  has  lost  none  of  its  universality  thereby. 
How  well  or  ill  founded  the  impression  is,  it  will  be  for 
the  future  to  disclose. 

The  summoning  of  the  conference  had  been  a  triumph 
for  German  diplomacy,  but  its  results  were  disappointing 
to  her ;  for  while  the  proceedings  showed  that  among  all 
nations  she  could  only  fully  rely  on  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  Austria,  they  ended  in  an  acknowledgment  by 
Germany  of  the  special  position  of  France  in  Morocco. 
The  Act  of  Algeciras,  which  was  dated  April  7,  1906, 
stated  that  the  signatory  Powers  recognized  that  "  order, 
peace,  and  prosperity "  could  only  be  made  to  reign  in 
Morocco  "  by  means  of  the  introduction  of  reforms 
based  upon  the  triple  principle  of  the  sovereignty  and 
independence  of  his  Majesty  the  Sultan,  the  integrity  of 
his  States,  and  economic  liberty  without  any  inequality," 
Then  followed  six  Declarations  regarding  the  organiza- 


MOROCCO  263 

tion  of  the  police,  smuggling,  the  establishment  of  a 
State  bank,  the  collection  of  taxes,  and  the  finding  of 
new  sources  of  revenue,  customs,  and  administrative 
services  and  public  works.  For  the  organization  of  the 
police,  French  and  Spanish  officers  and  non-com- 
missioned officers  were  to  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Sultan  by  the  French  and  Spanish  Governments. 
Tenders  for  public  works  were  to  be  adjudicated  on 
impartially  without  regard  to  the  nationality  of  the 
bidder.  The  effect  of  the  Act  was  to  give  international 
recognition  to  the  special  position  of  France  and  Spain 
in  Morocco,  while  safeguarding  the  economic  interests 
of  other  Powers. 

The  attitude  taken  up  by  Germany  relative  to  the 
conference  was  set  forth  in  a  speech  delivered  by  Prince 
von  Biilow  in  the  Reichstag  in  December,  1905.  It  was 
based,  he  explained,  on  the  provisions  of  the  Madrid 
Convention  of  1880,  in  which  all  the  Great  Powers  and 
the  United  States  had  taken  part.  The  Chancellor 
claimed  that  Germany  sought  no  special  privileges  in 
Morocco,  but  favoured  a  peaceful  and  independent 
development  of  the  Shereefian  Empire.  He  denied  that 
German  rights  could  be  abrogated  by  an  Anglo-French 
Agreement,  and  pointing  out  that  Morocco  in  1880  had 
granted  all  the  signatories  to  the  Madrid  Convention 
most-favoured-nation  treatment,  claimed  that  if  France 
desired  to  make  good  her  demand  for  special  privileges, 
she  ought  to  have  the  consent  of  the  special  signatories 
to  the  Madrid  pact.  Germany  had  a  right  to  be  heard  in 
any  new  settlement  of  Moroccan  conditions ;  she  could 
not  allow  herself  to  the  treated  as  a  quantite  negligeable, 
nor  be  left  out  of  account  when  a  country  lying  on  two 
of  the  world's  greatest  commercial  highways  was  being 
disposed  of.  She  had  a  commercial  treaty  with  Morocco, 
conferring  most-favoured-nation  rights,  and  it  did  not 
accord  with  her  honour  to  give  way. 


264  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

The  Act  of  Algeciras,  however,  proved  to  have  brought 
only  temporary  relief  to  European  tension.  Disturbances 
continued  in  Morocco,  French  subjects  were  murdered 
at  Marakesch  in  1907,  and  France  occupied  the  province 
of  Udja  with  troops  until  satisfaction  should  be  given. 
Owing  to  riots  at  Casablanca  in  1908,  in  which  French  as 
well  as  Spanish  and  Italian  labourers  were  killed,  she 
decided  to  occupy  the  place,  and  sent  a  strong  military 
and  naval  force  thither.  A  French  warship  bombarded 
the  town,  and  by  June,  1908,  the  French  army  of 
occupation  numbered  15,000  men.  Meanwhile  internal 
commotions  and  intrigues  had  led  to  the  deposition  of 
Abdul  Aziz  and  his  replacement  on  the  throne  by  his 
brother,  Muley  Hand,  with  the  support  of  Germany. 
France  and  Spain  refused  to  recognize  the  new  ruler 
unless  he  gave  guarantees  that  he  would  respect  the  Act 
of  Algeciras.  Muley  gave  the  required  guarantees,  and 
in  March,  1909,  France  "  declared  herself  wholly  attached 
to  the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  Shereefian 
Empire  and  decided  to  safeguard  economic  equality  in 
Morocco."  Germany  on  her  side  declared  she  was 
pursuing  in  Morocco  only  economic  interests  and, 
"  recognizing  that  the  special  political  interests  of  France 
in  Morocco  are  closely  bound  up  in  that  country  with 
the  consolidation  of  order  and  of  internal  peace,"  was 
"  resolved  not  to  impede  those  interests." 

The  German  idea  of  not  impeding  French  special 
political  interests  in  Morocco  was  disclosed  little  more 
than  two  years  later  by  the  dispatch  of  the  German 
gunboat  Panther  (of  "Well  done,  Panther!"  fame)  on 
July  3,  1911,  to  the  "closed"  port  of  Agadir  on  the 
south  Moroccan  coast. 

It  was  as  dramatic  a  coup  as  the  Emperor's  visit  to 
Tangier  and  caused  as  much  alarm.  The  fact  is  that  the 
march  of  French  troops  to  Fez,  which  had  taken  place 
a  few  months  before,  convinced  the  Emperor  and  his 


MOROCCO  265 

Government  that  France,  relying  on  the  support  of  her 
Entente  friend  England,  was  bent  on  the  Tunisification 
of  Morocco.  The  Emperor,  Chancellor  von  Bethmann- 
Hollvveg,  and  Foreign  Secretary  Kiderlen-Waechter,  met 
at  the  Foreign  Office  on  May  2ist,  and  it  was  decided  to 
send  a  ship  of  war,  as  at  once  a  hint  and  a  demonstra- 
tion, to  Agadir  or  other  Moroccan  port.  Germany,  of 
course,  in  accordance  with  diplomatic  strategy,  did  not 
disclose  the  real  springs  of  her  action,  though  they  must 
have  been  patent  to  all  the  world.  She  notified  the 
Powers  of  the  dispatch  of  her  warship,  explaining  that 
the  sending  of  the  Panther,  which  "  happened  to  be  in 
the  neighbourhood,"  was  owing  to  the  representations  of 
German  firms,  as  a  temporary  measure  for  the  protection 
of  German  proteges  in  that  region,  and  taken  "  in  view  of 
the  possible  spread  of  disorders  prevailing  in  other  parts 
of  Morocco." 

In  France,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  asserted  that  the 
step  was  not  in  conformity  with  the  spirit  of  the  Franco- 
German  Agreement  of  1909,  in  which  Germany  resolved 
not  to  impede  French  special  interests,  that  there  were 
no  Germans  at  Agadir,  and  that  only  nine  months  pre- 
viously Germany  had  angrily  protested  at  the  calling  of 
a  French  cruiser  at  the  same  port.  The  reference  was  to 
the  visit  of  the  French  cruiser  Du  Chaylu  in  November, 
1910,  when  the  captain  paid  a  visit  to  the  local  pasha. 
The  German  Foreign  Secretary  eventually  said  Germany 
had  no  objection  to  France  using  her  police  rights  even 
in  a  closed  port,  and  the  admission  was  taken  as  a  fresh 
renunciation  on  the  part  of  Germany  of  any  right  to 
interference.  Feeling  ran  high  for  a  time  both  in  France 
and  Germany,  while  the  German  action  added  to  the 
sentiment  of  hostility  to  Germany  in  England,  and 
English  political  circles  perceived  in  it  a  design  on 
Germany's  part  of  acquiring  a  port  on  the  Moroccan 
coast.  The  word  "  compensation,"  which  afterwards 


266  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

was  to  prove  the  solution  of  Franco-German  differences, 
was  now  first  mentioned  by  Germany. 

After  England's  determination  to  support  France  had 
been  made  plain  by  ministerial  statements,  the  entire 
Morocco  episode  was  closed  by  the  Franco-German 
Agreement  signed  on  November  5,  1911,  as  "explanatory 
and  supplementary"  to  the  Franco-German  Agreement 
of  1909.  The  effect  of  the  new  Agreement  was  practically 
to  give  France  as  free  a  hand  in  Morocco  as  England 
has  in  Egypt,  with  the  reservation  that  "the  proceedings 
of  France  in  Morocco  leave  untouched  the  economic 
equality  of  all  nations."  The  Agreement  further  gives 
France  "  entire  freedom  of  action  "  in  Morocco,  includ- 
ing measures  of  police.  The  rights  and  working  area  of 
the  Morocco  State  bank  were  left  as  they  stood  under 
the  Act  of  Algeciras.  The  sovereignty  of  the  Sultan  is 
assumed,  but  not  explicitly  declared.  The  compensation 
to  Germany  for  her  agreement  to  "  put  no  hindrances  in 
the  way  of  French  administration  "  and  for  the  "  pro- 
tective rights "  she  recognizes  as  "  belonging  to  France 
in  the  Shereefian  Empire  "  was  the  cession  by  France  to 
Germany  of  a  large  portion  of  her  Congo  territory  in 
mid-Africa,  with  access  to  the  Congo  and  its  tributaries, 
the  Sanga  and  Ubangi. 

While  the  ground-idea  of  Germany's  policy  of  eco- 
nomic expansion,  and  the  source  of  all  her  trouble  with 
England,  is  her  insistence  on  her  "  place  in  the  sun,"  the 
difficulty  attending  it  for  other  nations  is  to  determine 
the  place's  nature  and  extent,  so  that  every  one  shall  be 
comfortable  and  prosperous  all  round. 

The  alterations  in  conditions  among  civilized  nations 
during  the  last  half-century,  more  especially  in  all  that 
relates  to  international  intercourse — political,  financial, 
commercial,  social — makes  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
changes  must  follow  in  the  conduct  of  their  foreign 
policies.  The  fact  also,  recognized  by  no  country  more 


MOROCCO  267 

clearly  than  by  Germany,  that  the  profitable  regions  of 
the  earth  are  already  appropriated  makes  an  economic 
policy  for  her  all  the  more  advisable.  An  economic 
policy,  moreover,  is,  notwithstanding  her  apparent 
militarism,  most  in  harmony  with  the  peaceful  and 
industrious  character  of  her  people.  Unfortunately,  the 
stage  in  progress  where  the  political  and  commercial 
interests  of  all  nations  have  become  defined  and  adjusted 
has  not  yet  been  reached,  though  the  numerous  agree- 
ments between  the  Great  Powers  of  recent  years  go  far 
towards  clearing  the  way  for  so  desirable  a  consum- 
mation. Unfortunately,  too,  it  is  in  the  very  process  of 
finding  bases  for  such  agreements  that  international 
jealousies  and  misunderstandings  arise  ;  and  hence  in 
securing  peace,  governments  and  peoples  are  at  all  times 
nowadays  most  in  jeopardy  of  war.  This  consideration 
alone  might  very  well  be  used  to  justify  nations  in  keep- 
ing their  military  and  naval  forces  strong  and  ready. 
Perhaps  some  day  such  forms  of  force  will  not  be 
wanted,  though  admittedly  the  great  majority  of  people 
still  refuse  to  believe  that  the  changes  which  have 
occurred  have  altered  the  fundamental  attitude  of 
countries  to  each  other,  and  remain  firmly  convinced 
that  to-day,  as  yesterday  and  the  day  before,  great 
nations  are  moved  by  an  irresistible  desire  to  add  to 
their  territories  and  in  every  way  aggrandize  themselves, 
by  diplomacy  if  possible,  and  if  diplomacy  fails,  by 
force. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say  with  certainty  what 
the  real  designs  of  the  Emperor  and  his  Government  in 
this  regard  were  during  the  Morocco  episode,  or  are  now. 
Some  believe  that  their  designs  have  always  aimed,  and 
still  aim,  at  depriving  Great  Britain  of  her  position  of 
superiority  in  respect  of  territory,  maritime,  dominion, 
and  trade.  Others  hold  that  they  seek  and  will  have, 
coiite  que  coute,  new  territory  for  Germany's  increasing 


268  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

population,  and  look  with  greedy  eyes  towards  South 
America  and  even  Holland.  Others  yet  again  represent 
them  as  incessantly  on  the  watch  to  seize  a  harbour  here 
or  there  as  a  coaling  station  for  warships  and  a  basis  of 
attack.  But  an  unbiased  survey  of  the  annals  of  the 
Emperor's  reign  hitherto  does  not  bear  out  any  of  these 
assertions.  A  policy  of  territorial  expansion  as  such, 
mere  earth-hunger,  cannot  be  proved  against  him.  Prince 
Bismarck  was  no  colonial  enthusiast,  though  he  passes 
for  being  the  founder  of  Germany's  present  colonial 
policy  ;  and  even  to-day  the  colonial  party  in  Germany, 
though  a  very  noisy,  is  not  a  very  large  or  influential 
one.  Samoa — East  Africa — Kiao-tschau — the  Carolines 
— Heligoland — the  Cameroons  :  how  can  the  acquisition 
of  comparatively  insignificant  and  unprofitable  places 
like  these  be  used  for  proving  that  the  might  of 
Germany  is  or  has  been  directed  towards  territorial 
conquest  ? 

What,  it  may  however  be  asked,  of  the  Morocco 
adventure  ?  Of  the  speech  at  Tangier  ?  Of  the  sending 
of  the  Panther  to  Agadir  ?  Of  the  demand  for  com- 
pensation in  Central  Africa  ?  Until  the  Morocco  ques- 
tion arose,  all  the  quarrels  amongst  the  Powers  regarding 
territory  were  caused  by  the  territorial  ambition  of 
France,  or  Russia,  or  Italy — not  of  Germany  ;  and  it 
was  not  until  France  showed  openly,  by  sending  her 
troops  to  Fez,  and  thus  ignoring  the  Act  of  Algeciras, 
that  Germany  put  forward  claims  for  territorial  compen- 
sation in  connection  with  Morocco.  The  visit  of  the 
Emperor  to  Tangier  in  1905,  a  year  after  the  Anglo- 
French  Agreement,  was  doubtless  an  unpleasant  surprise 
for  both  England  and  France.  And  not  without  good 
cause ;  for  England  and  France  are  naturally  and  histori- 
cally Mediterranean  Powers — the  one  as  guardian  of  the 
route  to  her  Eastern  possessions,  the  other  as  the  owners 
of  a  large  extent  of  Mediterranean  coast ;  while  England, 


MOROCCO  269 

in  addition,  was  justified  in  seeing  with  uneasiness  the 
possibility  of  a  German  settlement  at  Tangier  or  else- 
where on  the  Morocco  seaboard.  But  the  Tangier  visit 
and  all  that  followed  it  was  the  consequence,  not  of 
an  adventurous  policy  of  territorial  conquest,  but  of  a 
legitimate,  and  not  wholly  selfish,  desire  for  economic 
expansion. 

Taken,  then,  as  a  whole,  the  Emperor's  foreign  policy 
has  been,  as  it  is  to-day,  almost  entirely  economic  and 
commercial.  The  same  might,  no  doubt,  be  said  in  a 
general  way  of  all  civilized  Occidental  governments,  but 
there  never  has  yet  been  a  country  of  which  the  foreign 
policy  was  so  completely  directed  by  the  economic  and 
mercantile  spirit  as  modern  Germany.  The  foreign 
policy  of  England  has  also  been  commercial,  but  it  has 
been  influenced  at  times  by  noble  sentiment  and  splendid 
imagination  as  well.  The  first  question  the  German 
statesman,  in  whose  vocabulary  of  state-craft  the  word 
imagination  does  not  occur,  asks  himself  and  other 
nations  when  any  event  happens  abroad  to  demand 
imperial  attention  is — how  does  it  affect  Germany's 
economic  and  commercial  interests,  future  as  well  as 
present  ?  What  is  Germany  going  to  get  out  of  it  ? 
The  manner  in  which  on  various  occasions  during  the 
reign  the  question  has  been  propounded  has  excited 
criticism  bordering  on  indignation  abroad,  but  it  should 
be  recognized  that  it  has  invariably  been  answered  in 
the  long  run  by  Germany  in  the  spirit  of  compromise 
and  conciliation. 

However,  all  civilized  nations  nowadays  see  that  war 
is  the  least  satisfactory  method  of  adjusting  national 
quarrels,  and  the  tendency  is  happily  growing  among 
them  to  pursue  a  commercial,  an  economic  policy,  a 
policy  of  peace.  This  is  true  Weltpolitik,  true  world- 
policy.  Time  was  when  wars  were  the  unavoidable 
result  of  conditions  then  prevailing  ;  but  conditions  have 


270  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

greatly  altered,  and  war,  as  there  is  abundant  evidence  to 
show,  is  to-day,  in  almost  every  case,  avoidable  by  all 
civilized  peoples.  Formerly  war  deranged  and  disturbed, 
at  any  rate  for  the  time  being,  the  commerce  and 
industries  of  the  countries  engaged  in  it ;  to-day,  as 
Mr.  Norman  Angell  demonstrates,  it  deranges  and  dis- 
turbs commerce  and  industry  all  over  the  world.  The 
derangement  and  disturbance  may,  it  is  true,  be  only 
temporary ;  but  there  is,  as  always,  the  loss  of  life 
among  the  youth  of  the  countries  engaged  in  war  to  be 
remembered.  Granted  that  it  is  pleasant  and  honourable 
to  die  for  one's  country.  Let  us  hope  the  time  is  coming 
when  it  will  be  equally  pleasant  and  honourable  to  live 
for  it. 

We  have  done  with  Morocco,  but  to  round  off  the 
record  for  1905  mention  should  be  made  of  an  incident 
in  the  Emperor's  life  which  was  a  source  of  great  pleasure 
to  him  after  his  return  from  his  journey  thither.  The 
marriage  of  his  eldest  son,  the  Crown  Prince,  took  place 
in  the  Chapel  Royal  of  the  Berlin  palace  on  June  15, 
1905,  to  the  young  Duchess  Cecilie  of  Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin,  whose  character  has  been  alluded  to  elsewhere 
and  whom  all  Germans  look  forward  with  pleasure  to 
seeing  one  day  their  Empress.  The  marriage  naturally 
was  attended  by  rejoicings  in  Berlin  similar  to  those 
shown  when  the  Emperor  was  married  in  1881.  Their 
chief  popular  feature,  now  as  then,  was  the  formal  entry 
into  the  capital,  and  its  chief  domestic  feature  a  grand 
wedding  breakfast  at  the  Emperor's  palace.  On  the 
occasion  of  the  latter,  the  Emperor,  rising  from  his  seat 
and  using  the  familiar  Du  and  Dich  (thou  and  thee), 
addressed  his  newly-made  daughter-in-law  as  follows  : — 

"  My  dear  daughter  Cecilie, — Let  me,  on  behalf  of 
my  wife  and  my  whole  House,  heartily  welcome  you 
as  a  member  of  my  House  and  my  family  circle.  You 
have  come  to  us  like  a  Queen  of  Spring  amid  roses  and 


MOROCCO  271 

garlands,  and  under  endless  acclamations  of  the  people 
such  as  my  Residence  city  has  not  known  for  long.  A 
circle  of  noble  guests  has  assembled  to  celebrate  this  high 
and  joyful  festival  with  us,  but  not  only  those  present, 
but  also  those  who  are,  alas,  no  more,  are  with  us  in 
spirit :  your  illustrious  father  and  my  parents. 

"A  hundred  thousand  beaming  faces  have  enthu- 
siastically greeted  you ;  they  have,  however,  not  merely 
shone  with  pleasure,  but  whoever  can  look  deeper  into 
the  heart  of  man  could  have  seen  in  their  eyes  the 
question — a  question  which  can  only  be  answered  by 
your  whole  life  and  conduct,  the  question,  How  will  it 
turn  out  ? 

"  You  and  your  husband  are  about  to  found  a  home 
together.  The  people  has  its  examples  in  the  past  to  live 
up  to.  The  examples  which  have  preceded  you,  dear 
Cecilie,  have  been  already  eloquently  mentioned — Queen 
Louise  and  other  Princesses  who  have  sat  on  the 
Prussian  throne.  They  are  the  standards  according  to 
which  the  people  will  judge  your  life,  while  you,  my  dear 
son,  will  be  judged  according  to  the  standard  Providence 
set  up  in  your  illustrious  great-grandfather. 

"  You,  my  daughter,  have  been  received  by  us  with 
open  arms  and  will  be  honoured  and  cherished.  To 
both  of  you  I  wish  from  my  heart  God's  richest  blessings. 
Let  your  home  be  founded  on  God  and  our  Saviour.  As 
He  is  the  most  impressive  personality  which  has  left  its 
illuminating  traces  on  the  earth  up  to  the  present  time, 
which  finds  an  echo  in  the  hearts  of  mankind  and  impels 
them  to  imitate  it,  so  may  your  career  imitate  His,  and 
thus  will  you  also  fulfil  the  laws  and  follow  the  traditions 
of  our  House. 

"  May  your  home  be  a  happy  one  and  an  example  for 
the  younger  generation,  in  accordance  with  the  fine 
sentence  which  William  the  Great  once  wrote  down  as 
his  confession  of  faith  :  '  My  powers  belong  to  the  world 


272  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

and   my  country.'     Accept  my    blessing  for  your  lives. 
I  drink  to  the  health  of  the  young  married  couple." 

The  record  of  this  memorable  year  may  be  closed  with 
mention  of  an  institution  which  is  not  only  a  special  care 
of  the  Emperor's,  but  is  also  a  landmark  in  the  relation 
of  Germany  and  America  which  may  prove  to  be  the 
forerunner,  if  it  has  not  already  done  so,  of  similar  inter- 
change of  ideas  and  information  between  nations  which 
only  require  mutually  to  understand  each  other  in  order 
to  be  the  best  of  friends. 

The  system  of  an  annual  exchange  of  professors 
between  America  and  Germany  was  suggested,  it  is 
believed,  to  the  Emperor  in  this  year  by  Herr  Althoff, 
the  Prussian  Minister  of  Education.  The  Emperor 
took  up  the  idea  with  enthusiasm,  and  after  discussing  it 
with  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of  Columbia 
University,  who  was  invited  to  Wilhelmshohe  for  the 
purpose,  had  it  finally  elaborated  by  the  Prussian 
Ministry  of  Education  which  now  superintends  its 
working. 

The  original  idea  of  an  exchange  only  betweer 
Harvard  and  Berlin  University  professors  was,  thanks 
to  the  liberality  of  an  American  citizen,  Mr.  Speyer, 
extended  almost  simultaneously  by  the  establishment  of 
what  are  known  as  "  Roosevelt "  professorships.  The 
holders  of  these  positions,  unlike  the  original 
"exchange"  professors  between  Harvard  and  Berlin 
only,  may  be  chosen  by  the  trustees  of  Columbia 
University  from  any  American  university  and  can 
exchange  duties  for  two  terms,  instead  of  one  in  the 
place  of  the  exchange  professors,  with  the  professors  of 
any  German  University.  Harvard  professors  have  been 
succesively  :  Francis  G.  Peabody,  Theodore  W.  Richards, 
William  H.  Scofield,  William  M.  Davis,  George  F. 
Moore,  H.  Munsterberg,  Theobald  Smith,  Charles  S. 


MOROCCO  273 

Minog ;  and  Roosevelt  professors :  J.  W.  Burgess, 
Arthur  T.  Hadley,  Felix  Adler,  Benj.  Ide  Wheeler, 
C.  Alphonso  Smith,  Paul  S.  Reinsch,  and  William 
H.  Sloane. 

Writing  to  the  German  Ambassador  in  Washington, 
Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg,  in  November,  1905,  the 
Emperor  said  :  "  Express  my  fullest  sympathy  with  the 
movement  regarding  the  exchange  of  professors.  We 
are  very  well  satisfied  with  Professor  Peabody,  the  first 
exchange  professor,  and  thankful  to  have  him.  He 
comes  to  me  in  my  house,  an  honourable  and  welcome 
guest.  My  hearty  thanks  also  to  Mr.  Speyer,  for  his 
fine  gift  for  the  erection  of  a  professorship  in  Berlin. 
The  exchange  of  the  learned  is  the  best  means  for  both 
nations  to  know  the  inner  nature  of  each  other,  and 
from  thence  spring  mutual  respect  and  love,  which  are 
securities  for  peace."  The  idea  of  the  exchange,  as 
described  by  Professor  John  W.  Burgess,  of  Columbia 
University,  the  first  Roosevelt  professor  to  Germany,  is 
"  an  exchange  of  educators  which  has  for  its  purpose 
the  bringing  of  the  men  of  learning  of  one  country  into 
other  countries  and  by  a  comparison  of  fundamental 
ideas  to  arrive  at  a  world-philosophy  and  a  world- 
morality  upon  which  the  world's  peace  and  the  world's 
civilization  may  finally  and  firmly  rest."  The  conception 
of  a  world-philosophy  and  a  world-morality  upon  which 
the  world's  peace  and  civilization  may  rest  is  not  new, 
being  now  a  little  over  1900  years  old,  and,  moreover, 
educators  and  men  of  science  in  all  countries  are  constantly 
exchanging  ideas  by  personal  visits,  correspondence,  and 
publications ;  but  in  any  case,  the  Emperor's  exchange 
system  has  the  advantage  that  it  brings  the  educators  into 
touch  with  large  numbers  of  the  rising  generation  in 
America  and  Germany  and  undoubtedly  helps  towards  a 
better  mutual  understanding  of  the  relations,  and  in 
especial  the  economic  relations,  of  the  two  countries. 
T 


274  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

It  has  worked  well,  and  the  Emperor  has  encouraged 
it  by  showing  constant  hospitality  to  the  American 
professors  who  have  come  to  Berlin  since  the  system 
was  instituted.  One  or  two  episodes  have  given  rise 
to  a  diplomatic  question  as  to  whether  or  not  exchange 
professors  and  their  wives  have  the  privilege  of  being 
presented  at  Court.  The  question  has  practically  been 
decided  in  the  negative.  This,  however,  does  not 
prevent  the  Emperor  entertaining  the  professors  at  his 
palace,  or  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  professors' 
wives  on  other  than  Court  ceremonious  occasions. 


XIII 

BEFORE   THE   "NOVEMBER   STORM" 

1906-1907 

IN    the  domestic   life   of  the   Emperor   during   these 
years  fall  two  or  three  events  of  more  than  ordinary 
interest.     From   the  dynastic   point   of   view  was   of 
importance  the  birth  of  a  son  and  heir  to  the  Crown 
Prince  in  the  Marble  Palace  at  Potsdam. 

The  Emperor  was  at  sea,  on  his  annual  northern  trip, 
when  the  birth  occurred.  As  the  ship  approached  Bergen 
the  town  was  seen  to  be  gaily  decorated  with  flags.  As  it 
happened,  everybody  on  board  knew  of  the  birth  except 
the  Emperor,  but  none  of  the  officers  round  him  ventured 
to  congratulate  him,  because  they  supposed  he  knew  of 
it  already  and  were  waiting  for  him  to  refer  to  it.  At 
Bergen  the  German  Minister,  Stuebel,  and  German 
Consul,  Mohr,  came  on  board.  The  Minister,  being  a 
diplomatist,  said  nothing,  but  the  Consul,  as  Consuls 
will,  spoke  his  mind  and  ventured  his  congratulations. 
"  What  ?  I  am  a  grandfather  !  "  exclaimed  the  Emperor. 
"  Why,  that's  splendid  !  and  I  knew  nothing  about  it ! " 
The  captain  of  the  ship  then  asked  should  he  fire  the 
salute  of  twenty-one  guns  usual  on  such  occasions. 
"  No,"  said  the  Emperor,  "  that  won't  do.  Mohr  is  a 
great  talker.  Let  us  first  see  the  official  despatches  from 
Berlin."  The  party,  including  the  Emperor,  went  down 
into  the  cabin  to  await  the  despatches,  which  were  being 
brought  from  Bergen. 

275 


276          WILLIAM   OF  GERMANY 

On  their  arrival  a  basketful  of  State  papers  was  placed 
before  the  Emperor.  The  first  one  he  took  out  was  a 
telegram  from  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  with  congratulations 
(great  merriment)  ;  the  second  from  an  unknown  lady 
in  Berlin,  with  a  name  corresponding  to  the  English 
"  Brown,"  with  four  lines  of  congratulatory  poetry  ;  and 
it  was  not  until  more  than  a  hundred  despatches  had 
been  opened  that  they  came  to  one  from  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  and  another  from  the  Empress  announcing 
the  birth.  Popular  reports  at  the  time  represented  the 
Emperor  as  boiling  over  with  anger  at  his  being  kept  or 
left  in  ignorance  of  the  happy  event.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  was  in  high  good-humour,  and  himself  mentioned  a 
similar  occurrence  at  Metz  in  1870,  when  an  important 
movement  of  the  French  army  was  not  reported  because 
it  was  assumed  that  it  was  already  known  to  the  Intelli- 
gence Department.  As  a  public  sign  of  his  satisfaction 
he  amnestied  the  half-dozen  of  his  subjects  who  happened 
to  be  in  gaol  as  punishment  for  lese  majeste. 

Another  domestic  event  at  this  time  was  the  celebration 
by  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of  their  silver  wedding. 
Berlin,  of  course,  was  illuminated  and  beflagged.  There 
was  a  great  gathering  of  royal  relatives,  a  State  banquet, 
and  a  special  parade  of  troops.  At  the  latter  were  re- 
markable for  their  huge  proportions  two  former  grenadiers 
of  the  regiment  of  Guards  the  Emperor  commanded  in 
his  youth.  They  were  now  settled  in  America,  but  came 
came  over  to  Germany  on  the  Emperor's  particular 
invitation  and,  of  course,  at  his  private  expense. 

The  last  item  of  domestic  interest  this  year  (1906) 
worth  record  was  the  marriage  of  Prince  Eitel  Frederick, 
the  E,mperor's  second  son,  with  Princess  Sophie  Charlotte 
of  Oldenburg.  In  his  speech  to  the  bridal  pair  on  their 
wedding-day  the  Emperor  referred  to  the  personal  like- 
ness the  young  Prince  bore  to  his  great-grandfather, 
Emperor  William,  and  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Prince 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  277 

might  grow  more  like  him  in  character  from  year  to 
year. 

Meantime  the  Emperor  had  to  pass  through  a  season 
of  great  annoyance  owing  to  the  scandal  which  arose  in 
connection  with  the  so-called  "  Camarilla."  The  existence 
of  a  small  and  secret  group  of  viciously  minded  men 
among  the  Emperor's  entourage  was  disclosed  to  the 
public  by  the  well-known  pamphleteer,  Maximilian 
Harden,  a  Jew  by  birth  named  Witowski,  who  as  a 
younger  man  had  been  on  semi-confidential  terms  with 
Prince  Bismarck  and  subsequently  with  Foreign  Secre- 
tary von  Holstein.  As  a  result  of  Harden's  disclosures 
some  highly  placed  friends  of  the  Emperor  were  com- 
promised and  had  ultimately  to  disappear  from  public 
life  as  well  as  from  the  Court.  It  was  perfectly  evident 
throughout  that  the  Emperor  had  been  totally  ignorant 
of  the  private  character  of  the  men  forming  the 
"  Camarilla,"  and  nothing  was  proved  to  show  that  the 
group  which  formed  it  had  ever  unduly,  or  indeed  in  any 
fashion,  influenced  him. 

An  allusion  made  to  the  scandal  by  a  deputy  in  the 
Reichstag  brought  the  Chancellor,  Prince  von  Biilow,  to 
his  feet  in  defence  of  the  monarch.  "  The  view,"  he  said, 
"that  the  monarch  in  Germany  should  not  have  his 
own  opinions  as  to  State  and  Government,  and  should 
only  think  what  his  Ministers  desire  him  to  think,  is  con- 
trary to  German  State  law  and  contrary  to  the  will  of  the 
German  people"  ("Quite  right,"  on  the  Right).  "The 
German  people,"  continued  the  Chancellor,  "  want  no 
shadow-king,  but  an  Emperor  of  flesh  and  blood.  The 
conduct  and  statements  of  a  strong  personality  like  the 
Emperor's  are  not  tantamount  to  a  breach  of  the  Consti- 
tution. Can  you  tell  me  a  single  case  in  which  the 
Emperor  has  acted  contrary  to  the  Constitution  ? " 

The  Chancellor  concluded  :  "  As  to  a  Camarilla — 
Camarilla  is  no  German  word.  It  is  a  hateful,  foreign, 


278  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

poisonous  plant  which  no  one  has  ever  tried  to  introduce 
into  Germany  without  doing  great  injury  to  the  people 
and  to  the  Prince.  Our  Emperor  is  a  man  of  far  too 
upright  a  character  and  much  too  clear-headed  to  seek 
counsel  in  political  things  from  any  other  quarter  than 
his  appointed  advisers  and  his  own  sense  of  duty."  The 
Camarilla  scandal  was  all  the  more  painful  as  it  was  made 
a  ground  for  insinuations  disgraceful  to  German  officers 
as  a  body.  Such  insinuations  were,  as  they  would  be 
to-day,  entirely  unfounded. 

Another  thing  that  annoyed  the  Emperor  this  year  was 
the  publication  of  ex-Chancellor  Prince  Hohenlohe's 
Memoirs.  The  publication  drew  from  him  a  telegram  to 
a  son  of  the  ex-Chancellor  in  which  he  expressed  his 
"  astonishment  and  indignation  "  at  the  publication  of 
confidential  private  conversations  between  him  and  Prince 
Hohenlohe  regarding  Prince  Bismarck's  dismissal.  "  I 
must  stigmatize,"  the  Emperor  telegraphed,  "such  con- 
duct as  in  the  last  degree  tactless,  indiscreet,  and  entirely 
inopportune.  It  is  a  thing  unheard-of  that  occurrences 
relating  to  a  sovereign  reigning  at  the  time  should  be 
published  without  his  permission." 

Germans  as  a  people  are  passionately  fond  of  dancing, 
and  though  everybody  knows  that  the  people  of  Vienna 
bear  away  the  palm  in  this  respect,  claim  to  be  the  best 
waltzers  in  the  world.  The  Emperor,  accordingly,  won 
great  popularity  among  the  dancers  of  his  realm  this  year 
by  lending  a  favourable  ear  to  the  sighing  of  the  young 
ladies  of  the  provincial  town  of  Crefeld  for  a  regiment 
which  would  provide  them  with  a  supply  of  dancing 
partners.  The  Emperor  took  occasion  to  visit  the  town, 
and  brought  with  him  a  regiment  of  the  Guards  from  Diis- 
seldorf  to  form  part  of  the  new  garrison.  He  was  received 
by  the  city  authorities,  and  was  at  the  same  time,  doubt- 
less, greeted  from  balcony  and  window  by  multitudes  of 
fair-haired  Crefeld  maidens,  who  looked  with  delightful 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  279 

anticipations  on  the  gallant  soldiers,  who  were  to  relieve 
the  tedium  of  their  evenings,  riding  by.  "To-day,"  the 
Emperor  told  the  assembled  city  fathers,  "  I  have  kept  my 
word  to  the  town  of  Crefeld,  and  when  I  make  a  promise 
I  keep  it  too  (stormy  applause).  I  have  brought  the 
town  its  garrison  and  the  young  ladies  their  dancers." 
The  "  stormy  applause  "  was  again  renewed — amid,  one 
may  imagine,  the  enthusiastic  waving  of  pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs from  the  windows  and  the  balconies. 

The  salient  feature  of  foreign  politics  just  now  was, 
naturally,  the  close  on  March  3ist  of  the  Conference  of 
Algeciras.  Its  results  have  been  referred  to  in  the 
chapter  on  Morocco,  and  mention  need  only  be  made 
here  of  the  famous  telegram  regarding  it  sent  by  the 
Emperor  on  April  I2th  of  this  year  (1906)  to  the  Foreign 
Minister  of  Austria,  Count  Goluchowski.  "A  capital 
example  of  good  faith  among  allies  ! "  he  telegraphed  to 
the  Count,  meaning  Austria's  support  of  Germany  at 
Algeciras.  "  You  showed  yourself  a  brilliant  second  in 
the  tourney,  and  can  reckon  on  the  like  service  from  me 
on  a  similar  occasion." 

Internal  affairs,  and  particularly  the  parliamentary 
situation  in  Germany,  had  during  the  three  or  four  years 
before  that  of  the  "  November  Storm"  demanded  a  good 
deal  of  the  Emperor's  attention.  The  everlasting  fight 
with  the  rebel  angels  of  the  Hohenzollern  heaven,  the 
Social  Democracy,  had  been  going  on  all  through  the 
reign.  Now  the  Emperor  would  fulminate  against  it, 
now  his  Chancellor,  Prince  von  Biilow,  would  attack  it 
with  brilliant  ability  and  sarcasm  in  Parliament.  Still 
the  Social  Democratic  movement  grew,  still  the  Vorwarts, 
the  party  organ,  continued  to  rail  at  industrial  capitalists 
and  the  large  landowners  alike,  still  Herr  Lucifer-Bebel 
bitterly  assailed  every  measure  of  the  Government.  The 
fact  seems  to  be  that  the  people  were  getting  restive 
under  the  imperial  burdens  the  Emperor's  world-policy 


280  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

entailed.  The  cost  of  living,  partly  as  a  result  of  the  new 
German  tariff,  with  maximum  and  minimum  duties, 
which  now  replaced  the  Caprivi  commercial  treaties,  was 
steadily  rising.  The  Morocco  episode  had  ended  with- 
out territorial  gain,  if  with  no  loss  of  national  honour 
or  prestige.  The  Poles  were  antagonized  afresh  by  a 
stricter  application  of  the  Settlement  Law  for  Germanizing 
Prussian  Poland.  Colonial  troubles  in  South-west  Africa 
with  Herero  and  other  recalcitrant  tribes  were  making 
heavy  demands  on  the  Treasury. 

The  parliamentary  situation  was,  as  usual,  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Centrum  party,  which,  with  its  hundred  or  more 
members,  can  always  make  a  majority  by  combining  with 
Liberal  parties  of  the  Left  (including  the  Socialists)  or 
Conservative  parties  of  the  Right.  In  December,  1906, 
when  the  Budget  was  laid  before  Parliament,  it  was 
found  to  contain  a  demand  for  about  .£1,500,000  for  the 
troops  in  South-west  Africa.  The  Centrum  refused  to 
grant  more  than  .£1,000,000,  and  required,  moreover,  an 
undertaking  that  the  number  of  troops  in  the  colony 
should  be  reduced.  The  Social  Democrats,  with  a 
number  of  Progressives  and  other  Left  parties  sufficient 
to  form  a  majority,  joined  the  Centrum,  and  the  Govern- 
ment demand  was  rejected  by  177  to  168  votes.  On  the 
result  of  the  voting  being  declared,  Chancellor  von 
Biilow  solemnly  rose  and  drew  a  paper  from  his  pocket, 
It  was  an  order  from  the  Emperor  dissolving  Parliament. 

The  general  elections  were  to  be  held  in  January 
following,  and  great  efforts  were  made  by  the  Emperor 
and  Chancellor  to  secure  a  Government  majority  against 
the  combined  Centrists  and  Socialists.  The  country  was 
appealed  to  to  say  whether  Germany  should  lose  her 
African  colonies  or  not ;  a  patriotic  response  was  made, 
and,  though  the  Centrum,  as  always,  came  back  to  Parlia- 
ment in  undiminished  strength,  the  Socialists  lost  one- 
half  of  their  eighty  seats. 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  281 

The  Emperor,  needless  to  say,  was  tremendously 
gratified.  On  the  night  the  final  results  were  announced 
he  gave  a  large  dinner-party  at  the  Palace,  and  read  out 
to  the  Royal  Family  and  his  guests  the  bulletins  as  they 
came  in.  Towards  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
official  totals  were  known.  The  streets  were  knee-deep 
in  snow,  but  the  people  were  not  deterred  from  making 
a  demonstration  in  their  thousands  before  the  palace. 
By  and  by  lights  were  seen  moving  hurriedly  to  and 
fro  along  the  first  floor  containing  the  Emperor's 
apartments.  A  general  illumination  of  the  suite  of  rooms 
followed,  a  window  was  thrown  up,  and  the  Emperor, 
bare-headed,  was  seen  in  the  opening.  Instantly  com- 
plete stillness  fell  on  the  vast  square,  and  the  Emperor, 
leaning  far  out  over  the  balcony,  and  evidently  much 
excited,  spoke  in  stentorian  tones  and  with  a  dramatic 
waving  of  his  right  arm  as  follows  :  "  Gentlemen  !  " — the 
"  gentlemen  "  included  half  the  hooligans  of  Berlin,  but 
such  are  the  accidents  of  political  life — "Gentlemen  ! 
This  fine  ovation  springs  from  the  feeling  that  you  are 
proud  of  having  done  your  duty  by  your  country.  In 
the  words  of  our  great  Chancellor  (Bismarck),  who  said 
that  if  the  Germans  were  once  put  in  the  saddle  they 
would  soon  learn  to  ride,  you  can  ride  and  you  will  ride, 
and  ride  down,  any  one  who  opposes  us,  especially  when 
all  classes  and  creeds  stand  fast  together.  Do  not  let  this 
hour  of  triumph  pass  as  a  moment  of  patriotic  enthusiasm, 
but  keep  to  the  road  on  which  you  have  started."  The 
speech  closed  with  a  verse  from  Kleist's  "  Prince  von 
Homburg,"  a  favourite  monarchist  drama  of  the 
Emperor's,  conveying  the  idea  that  good  Hohenzollern 
rule  had  knocked  bad  Social-Democratic  agitation  into  a 
cocked  hat. 

The  result  of  the  elections  enabled  the  Chancellor  to 
form  a  new  "  bloc  "  party  in  Parliament,  consisting  of 
Conservatives  and  Liberals,  on  whose  united  aid  he 


282  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

could  rely  in  promoting  national  measures.  As  the 
Chancellor  said,  he  did  not  expect  Conservatives  to  turn 
into  Liberals  and  Liberals  into  Conservatives  overnight, 
nor  did  he  expect  the  two  parties  to  vote  solid  on  matters 
of  secondary  interest  and  importance  ;  but  he  expected 
them  to  support  the  Government  on  questions  that  con- 
cerned the  welfare  of  the  whole  Empire. 

Before  1907,  the  year  we  have  now  reached,  Franco- 
German  and  Anglo-German  relations  had  long  varied 
from  cool  to  stormy.  They  had  not  for  many  years 
been  at  "  set-fair,"  nor  have  they  apparently  reached  that 
halcyon  stage  as  yet.  During  the  Moroccan  troubles  it 
was  generally  believed  that  on  two  or  three  occasions 
war  was  imminent  either  between  France  and  Germany 
or  between  Germany  and  England.  That  there  was  such 
a  danger  at  the  time  of  M.  Delcasse's  retirement  from  the 
conduct  of  French  foreign  affairs  just  previous  to  the 
Algeciras  Conference  is  a  matter  of  general  conviction  in 
all  countries  ;  but  there  is  no  publicly  known  evidence 
that  danger  of  war  between  England  and  Germany  has 
been  acute  at  any  time  of  recent  years.  Nor  at  any  time 
of  recent  years  has  the  bulk  of  the  people  in  either 
country  really  desired  or  intended  war.  There  has  been 
international  exasperation,  sometimes  amounting  to 
hostility,  continuously  ;  but  it  was  largely  due  to 
Chauvinism  on  both  sides,  and  was  in  great  measure 
counteracted  by  the  efforts  of  public-spirited  bodies  and 
men  in  both  countries,  by  international  visits  of  amity 
and  goodwill,  and  by  the  determination  of  both  the 
English  and  German  Governments  not  to  go  to  war 
without  good  and  sufficient  cause. 

Among  the  most  striking  testimonies  to  this  deter- 
mination was  the  visit  of  the  Emperor  to  England  in 
November,  1907. 

The  visit  was  made  expressly  an  affair  of  State.  The 
Emperor  was  accompanied  by  the  Empress,  and  the  visit 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  283 

became  a  pageant  and  a  demonstration — a  pageant  in 
respect  of  the  national  honours  paid  to  the  imperial 
guests  and  a  demonstration  of  national  regard  and 
respect  for  them  as  friends  of  England.  Nothing  could 
have  been  simpler,  or  more  tactful  or  more  sincere  than 
the  utterances,  private  as  well  as  public,  of  the  Emperor 
throughout  his  stay.  His  very  first  speech,  the  few  words 
he  addressed  to  the  Mayor  of  Windsor,  displayed  all 
three  qualities.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "  like  a  home- 
coming when  I  enter  Windsor.  I  am  always  pleased  to 
be  here."  At  the  Guildhall  subsequently,  referring  to  the 
two  nations,  he  used,  and  not  for  the  first  time,  the 
phrase  "  Blood  is  thicker  than  water." 

At  the  Guildhall,  on  this  occasion,  the  Emperor 
reminded  his  hearers  that  he  was  a  freeman  of  the  City 
of  London,  having  been  the  recipient  of  that  honour 
from  the  hands  of  Lord  Mayor  Sir  Joseph  Savory  on  his 
accession  visit  to  London  in  1891.  He  then  referred  to 
the  visit  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  Sir  William  Treloar,  to 
Berlin  the  year  previous,  and  promised  a  similar  hearty 
welcome  to  any  deputation  from  the  City  of  London  to 
his  capital.  "In  this  place  sixteen  years  ago,"  continued 
the  Emperor,  "  I  said  that  all  my  efforts  would  be 
directed  to  the  preservation  of  peace.  History  will  do 
me  the  justice  of  recognizing  that  I  have  unfalteringly 
pursued  this  aim.  The  main  support,  however,  and  the 
foundation  of  the  world's  peace  is  the  maintenance  of 
good  relations  between  our  two  countries.  I  will,  in 
future  also,  do  all  I  can  to  strengthen  them,  and  the 
wishes  of  my  people  are  at  one  with  my  own  in  this." 

The  procession  that  followed  upon  the  visit  to  the 
Guildhall  made  a  special  impression  on  the  Emperor. 
"  I  was  so  close  to  the  people,"  he  said  afterwards,  "  who 
were  assembled  in  hundreds  of  thousands,  that  I  could 
look  straight  into  their  eyes,  and  from  the  expression  on 
their  faces  I  could  see  that  their  reception  of  the  Empress 


284          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

and  myself  was  no  artificial  welcome  but  an  out-and-out 
sincere  one.  That  stirred  us  deeply  and  gave  us  great 
satisfaction.  The  Empress  and  I  will  take  back  with  us 
recollections  of  London  and  England  we  shall  never 
forget." 

While  at  Windsor  the  Emperor  received  a  deputation 
of  sixteen  members  of  Oxford  University,  headed  by 
Lord  Curzon,  who  came  to  present  him  with  the  honorary 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  voted  him  by  the  University 
while  he  was  still  on  his  way  to  England.  It  was  a 
picturesque  scene  :  the  members  of  the  University  in  their 
academic  robes  were  surrounded  by  a  brilliant  company 
representing  the  intellect  of  the  country ;  and  the 
Emperor,  with  the  doctor's  hood  over  his  field-marshal's 
uniform,  was  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes. 

The  Emperor's  reply  to  Lord  Curzon's  address,  highly 
complimentary  to  the  University  though  it  was,  was  per- 
haps chiefly  remarkable  for  the  expression  of  his  expecta- 
tions from  the  Rhodes'  Scholarship  foundation.  "  The  gift 
of  your  great  fellow-countryman,  Cecil  Rhodes,"  he  said, 
"  affords  an  opportunity  to  students,  not  only  from  the 
British  colonies,  but  also  from  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  to  obtain  the  benefits  of  an  Oxford  education. 
The  opportunity  afforded  to  young  Germans  during  their 
period  of  study  to  mix  with  young  Englishmen  is  one  of 
the  most  satisfactory  results  of  Rhodes's  far-seeing  mind. 
Under  the  auspices  of  the  Oxford  alma  mater,  the  young 
students  will  have  an  opportunity  of  studying  the 
character  and  qualities  of  the  respective  nations,  of  foster- 
ing by  this  means  the  spirit  of  good  comradeship,  and 
creating  an  atmosphere  of  mutual  respect  and  friendship 
between  the  two  countries."  The  Emperor  had  always 
admired  the  Colossus  of  South  Africa,  discerning  in  him 
no  doubt  many  of  those  attributes  which  he  felt  existed 
in  himself  or  which  he  would  like  to  think  existed ;  and 
the  admiration  stood  the  test  of  personal  acquaintance 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  285 

when  Cecil  Rhodes  visited  Berlin  in  March,  1899,  in 
connexion  with  his  scheme  for  the  Cape  to  Cairo  rail- 
way. It  does  not  sound  very  complimentary  to  his  own 
subjects,  the  "  salt  of  the  earth,"  but  it  is  on  record  that 
the  Emperor  then  said  to  Rhodes  that  he  wished  "  he 
had  more  men  like  him."  At  the  close  of  the  visit  the 
Empress  returned  to  Germany,  while  the  Emperor  took 
a  much  needed  rest-cure  for  three  weeks  at  Highcliffe 
Castle,  a  country  mansion  in  Hampshire  he  rented  for 
the  purpose  from  its  owner,  Colonel  Stuart- Wortley. 

In  the  course  of  this  work,  it  may  have  been  noticed, 
no  particular  attention  has  been  devoted  to  the  Emperor 
in  his  military  capacity.  The  reason  is,  because  it  is 
taken  for  granted  that  all  the  world  knows  the  Emperor 
in  his  character  as  War  Lord,  that  he  is  practically  never 
out  of  uniform,  and  that  his  care  for  the  army  is  only 
second — if  it  is  second — to  that  for  the  stability  and 
power  of  his  monarchy.  The  two  things  in  fact  are 
closely  identified,  and,  from  the  Emperor's  standpoint,  on 
both  together  depend  the  security,  and  to  a  large  exten 
the  prosperity,  of  the  Empire.  He  knows  or  believes  that 
Germany  is  surrounded  by  hordes  of  potential  enemies,  as 
a  lighthouse  is  often  surrounded  by  an  ocean  that,  while 
treacherously  calm,  may  at  any  time  rage  about  the 
edifice  ;  that  round  the  lighthouse  are  gathered  his  folk, 
who  look  to  it  for  safety  ;  and  that  the  monarchy  is  the 
lighthouse  itself,  a  rocher  de  bronze,  towering  above  all. 

In  this  connexion  it  may  be  noted  that  the  army  in 
Germany  is  not  a  mercenary  body  like  the  English  army, 
but  is  simply  and  solely  a  certain  portion  of  the  people, 
naturally  the  younger  men,  passing  for  two  or  three 
years,  according  as  they  serve  in  the  infantry  or  cavalry, 
through  the  ranks.  The  system  of  recruiting,  as  every- 
body knows,  is  called  conscription  ;  it  ought  rather  to  be 
described  as  a  system  of  national  education,  whereby  the 
rude  and  raw  youth  of  the  country  is  converted  into  an 


286  WILLIAM   OF    GERMANY 

admirable  class  of  well-disciplined,  self-respecting,  and 
healthy,  as  well  as  patriotic,  citizens.  The  Emperor 
believes,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  many  English  army 
officers,  that  a  man  to  be  a  good  soldier  must  also  be  a  good 
Christian,  and  thus  we  find  him  enforcing,  or  trying  to 
enforce,  among  his  officers  the  moral  qualities  which 
Christianity  is  meant  to  foster. 

Among  these  qualities  is  simplicity  of  life,  and  as  a 
result  of  simplicity  of  life,  contentment  with  simple  and 
not  too   costly  pleasures.     We   saw  the   Emperor  as  a 
young  colonel  forbidding  his  officers  to    join  a  Berlin 
club  where  gambling  was  prevalent.     This  year,  after  a 
luxurious  lunch  at  one  of  the  regimental  messes,  he  issues 
an  order,  or  rather  an   edict,  expressing   his  wish   that 
officers  in  their  messes  should  content  themselves  with 
simpler  food  and  wines,  and  in  particular  that  when  he 
himself  is  a  guest,  the  meal  should  consist  only  of  soup, 
fish,  vegetables,  a  roast   and   cheese.     Ordinary  red   or 
white  table-wine,  a  glass  of  "  bowl  "  ("cup"),  or  German 
champagne  should  be  handed  round.     Liqueurs,  or  other 
forms  of  what  the  French  know  as  "  chasse-cafe,"  after 
dinner  were  best  avoided.     The  edict  of  course  caused 
amusement  as  well  as  a  certain  amount  of  discontent 
with  what  was  felt  to  be  a  kind  of  objectionable  paternal 
interference,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  has  had  much 
lasting  effect.     Even  now,  the  German  officer  laughingly 
tells  one  that  when  the  Emperor  dines  at  an  officers'  mess 
either  French  champagne  (which  is  infinitely  superior  to 
German)  is  poured  into  German  champagne  bottles,  or 
else  the  French  label  is  carefully  shrouded  in  a  napkin 
that   swathes  the   bottle   up  to   the    neck.     Apropos  of 
German  champagne,  a  story  is  current  that  Bismarck, 
one    day    dining    at    the    palace,    refused    the    German 
champagne  being  handed  round.     The  Emperor  noticed 
the  refusal  and  said  pointedly  to  Bismarck  :  "  I  always 
drink    German  champagne,  because  I  think  it   right  to 


BEFORE  THE  "NOVEMBER  STORM"  287 

encourage  our  national  industries.  Every  patriot  should 
do  so."  "  Your  Majesty,"  replied  the  grim  old  Chancellor, 
"  my  patriotism  does  not  extend  to  my  stomach." 

In  the  domain  of  aesthetics  this  year  the  Emperor  had 
some  pleasant  and  some  painful  experiences.  Joachim, 
the  great  violinist,  and  a  great  favourite  of  his,  died  in 
August,  and  his  death  was  followed  next  month,  Sep- 
tember, by  that  of  the  composer  Greig,  the  "  Chopin  of 
the  North,"  as  the  Emperor  called  him,  whose  friendship 
the  Emperor  had  acquired  on  one  of  his  Norwegian  trips. 
Quite  at  the  end  of  the  year  his  early  tutor,  Dr.  Hinzpeter, 
for  whom  he  always  had  a  semi-filial  regard,  passed  away. 

On  the  other  hand,  among  the  Emperor's  pleasant 
experiences  may  be  reckoned  the  visit  of  Mr.  Beerbohm 
Tree  and  his  English  company  to  the  German  capital. 
Their  repertory  of  Shakespearean  drama  greatly  delighted 
the  Emperor,  who  expressed  his  pleasure  to  Mr.  Tree  and 
his  fellow-players  personally,  and  did  not  dismiss  them 
without  substantial  tokens  of  his  appreciation. 

Earlier  in  the  year  the  French  actress,  Suzanne  Depres, 
visited  Berlin  and  appealed  strongly  to  the  Emperor's 
taste  for  the  "  classical  "  in  music  and  drama.  Inviting 
the  actress  to  the  royal  box,  he  said  to  her  :  "  You  have 
shown  us  such  a  natural,  living  Phaedra  that  we  were  all 
strongly  moved.  How  fine  a  part  it  is  !  As  a  youngster 
1  used  to  learn  verses  from  '  Phaedra  '  by  heart.  I  am  told 
that  in  France  devotion  to  classical  tradition  is  growing 
weaker,  and  that  Moliere  and  Racine  are  more  and  more 
seldom  played.  What  a  pity  !  Our  people,  on  the 
contrary,  remain  faithful  to  their  great  poets  and  enjoy 
their  works.  After  school  comes  college,  and  after  college 
— the  theatre.  It  should  elevate  and  expand  the  soul. 
The  people  do  not  need  any  representation  of  reality — 
they  are  well  acquainted  with  that  in  their  daily  lives. 
One  must  put  something  greater  and  nobler  before 
them,  something  superior  to  '  La  Dame  aux  Camelias. ' '' 


288  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

A  month  later,  however,  he  made  one  of  his  extremely 
rare  visits  to  an  ordinary  Berlin  theatre  to  see — "  The 
Hound  of  the  Baskervilles  "  ! 

Meanwhile  in  domestic  politics  Chancellor  von  Billow's 
famous  "  bloc  "  continued  to  work  satisfactorily,  notwith- 
standing difficulties  arising  from  the  conflicting  interests 
of  industry  and  agriculture,  Free  Trade  and  Protection, 
and  differences  of  creed  and  race.  At  the  end  of  this 
year  it  was  near  falling  asunder  in  connection  with  the 
question  of  judicial  reform,  but  Prince  von  Biilow  kept 
it  together  for  a  while  by  an  impassioned  appeal  to  the 
patriotism  of  both  parties.  In  the  course  of  the  speech 
he  told  the  House  how,  when  he  was  standing  at  Bis- 
marck's death-bed,  he  noticed  on  the  wall  the  portrait 
of  a  man,  Ludwig  Uhland,  who  had  said  "  no  head  could 
rule  over  Germany  that  was  not  well  anointed  with 
democratic  oil,"  and  drew  the  conclusion  from  the 
contrast  between  the  dying  man  of  action  and  the  poet 
that  only  the  union  of  old  Prussian  conservative  energy 
and  discipline  with  German  broad-hearted,  liberal  spirit 
could  secure  a  happy  future  for  the  nation.  The  "  bloc," 
as  we  shall  see,  broke  up  in  1909  and  Prince  von  Biilow 
resigned.  The  Chancellor  afterwards  attributed  his  fall 
entirely  to  the  Conservatives,  but  it  is  possible,  even 
probable,  that  it  was  in  at  least  some  measure  due  to  the 
events  of  the  annns  tnirabilis,  1908,  which  now  opened. 


XIV 

THE   NOVEMBER  STORM 

1908 

THE  "  November  Storm  "  was  a  collision  between 
the  Emperor  and  his  folk,  a  result  of  his  so-called 
"personal  regiment." 

In  a  general  way  the  latter  phrase  is  intended  to  de- 
scribe and  characterize  the  method  of  rule  adopted  by  the 
Emperor  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  reign,  especially 
as  exhibited  in  his   semi-official  utterances,  public   and 
private,  in  his  correspondence,  private  conversation,  and 
public  and  private  conduct  generally.     According  to  the 
popular   interpretation    of    the    Imperial   Constitution — 
the   nearest   thing    to   a    Magna   Charta   in   Germany — 
the  Emperor  should  observe,  in  his  words  and   acts,  a 
reserve  which  would  prevent  all  chance  of  creating  dis- 
sension  among  the   federated   States   and    in    particular 
would   secure  the  avoidance  of   anything  which   might 
disturb  Germany's  relations  to  foreign  countries  or  inter- 
fere   with    the   course  of    Germany's  foreign  policy   as 
carried    on    through    the    regular   official  channel,   the 
Foreign  Office.     The  ground  for  this  popular  interpre- 
tation is  a  constitutional  device  which  to  an  Englishman, 
if  it  be  not  offensive  to  say  so,  can  only  recall  the  well- 
known  definition  of  a  metaphysician  as  "a  blind  man, 
in  a  dark  room,  looking  for   a  black  cat,  which  is  not 
there." 
The  device  is  known   as  the  Chancellor's   "responsi- 

V  289 


290  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

bility,"  which  was  regarded,  and  is  still  regarded  in 
Germany,  as  at  once  "  covering "  the  Emperor  and 
offering  to  his  folk  a  safeguard  against  unwisdom  or 
caprice  on  his  part.  The  nature  of  this  responsibility, 
which  is  evidenced  by  the  Chancellor  signing  the  Em- 
peror's edicts  and  other  official  statements,  is  so 
frequently  discussed  by  German  politicians,  the  position 
of  the  Chancellor — the  Grand  Vizier  of  Germany  he  has 
been  picturesquely  called — is  so  influential,  and  the  inter- 
course between  the  Emperor  and  the  Chancellor  is  so 
close,  exclusive,  and  confidential,  that  an  examination  of 
the  meaning  of  the  term  "responsibility"  in  this  con- 
nexion is  desirable. 

Whenever  the  Emperor  does  anything  important  or 
surprising,  especially  in  foreign  policy,  the  first  question 
asked  by  his  subjects  is,  has  he  taken  the  step  with  the 
knowledge,  and  therefore  with  the  joint  responsibility,  of 
the  Chancellor  ?  If  the  answer  is  in  the  negative,  it  is  the 
"  personal  regiment "  again,  and  people  are  angry  :  if 
the  latter,  they  may  disapprove  of  the  step  and  grumble 
at  it,  but  it  is  covered  by  the  Chancellor's  signature  and 
they  can  raise  no  constitutional  objection.  Hence  the 
demand  usually  made  on  such  occasions  for  an  Act  of 
Parliament  once  for  all  defining  fully  and  clearly  the 
Chancellor's  responsibilities.  According  to  Prince  von 
Biilow,  and  it  is  doubtless  the  Emperor's  own  view,  the 
responsibility  mentioned  in  the  Constitution  is  a  "  moral 
responsibility,"  and  only  refers  to  such  acts  and  orders 
of  the  Emperor  as  immediately  arise  out  of  the  govern- 
ing rights  vested  in  him,  not  to  personal  expressions  of 
opinion,  even  though  these  may  be  made  on  formal 
occasions  ;  and  the  Prince  goes  on  to  say  that  if  a 
Chancellor  cannot  prevent  what  he  honestly  thinks 
would  permanently  and  in  an  important  respect  be 
injurious  to  the  Empire,  he  is  bound  to  resign. 

The  Chancellor,  then,  takes  responsibility  of  some  kind. 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          291 

But  responsibility  to  whom  ?  To  the  Emperor  ?  To 
the  Parliament  ?  To  the  people  ?  The  answer  is,  solely 
to  the  Emperor,  for  it  is  the  Emperor  who  appoints  and 
dismisses  him  as  well  as  every  other  Minister,  imperial 
or  Prussian,  and  the  Emperor  is  only  responsible  to 
his  conscience.  In  parliamentarily  ruled  countries  like 
England  Ministers  are  responsible  to  Parliament,  which 
expresses  its  disapproval  by  the  vote  of  a  hostile  majority, 
or  in  certain  circumstances  by  a  vote  of  censure  or  even 
impeachment.  In  Germany,  where  the  parliamentary 
system  of  government  does  not  exist,  and  where  there 
is  no  upsetting  Ministries  by  a  hostile  majority,  and 
no  parliamentary  vote  of  censure  or  impeachment,  no 
Minister,  including  the  Chancellor,  is  responsible,  in  the 
English  sense  of  the  word,  to  Parliament ;  accordingly, 
a  German  Chancellor  may  continue  in  office  in  spite  of 
Parliament,  provided  of  course  the  Emperor  supports 
him.  At  the  same  time  the  Chancellor  to-day  is  to  some 
indefinable  extent  responsible  to  Parliament,  and  there- 
fore to  the  people,  in  so  far  as  they  are  represented  by  it, 
for  he  must  keep  on  tolerable  terms  with  Parliament  as 
well  as  with  the  Emperor,  or  he  will  have  to  give  up 
office.  How  he  is  to  keep  on  terms  with  a  Parliament 
consisting  of  half  a  dozen  powerful  parties  and  as  many 
more  smaller  fractions  and  factions  is  probably  the  part 
of  his  duties  that  gives  him  most  trouble  and  at  times, 
doubtless,  very  disagreeably  interferes  with  the  placidity 
of  his  slumbers. 

There  is  no  struggle  for  government  in  Germany 
between  the  Crown  and  the  people  :  Germans  have  no 
ancient  Magna  Charta,  no  Habeas  Corpus,  no  Declaration 
of  Rights  to  look  back  to  on  the  long  road  to  liberty.  In 
the  protracted  struggle  for  government  between  the 
English  people  and  their  rulers,  the  people's  victory  took 
the  form  of  parliamentary  control  while  retaining  the 
monarch  as  their  highest  and  most  honoured  representa- 


292 

tive.  Socially  he  is  their  master,  politically  their  servant, 
the  "first  servant  of  the  State."  In  Germany  there  has 
never,  save  for  a  few  months  in  1848,  been  any  struggle 
of  a  similar  political  extent  or  kind.  German  monarchs, 
including  the  Emperor,  have  applied  the  expression  "  first 
servant  of  the  State "  to  themselves,  but  they  did  not 
apply  it  in  the  English  sense.  They  applied  it  more 
accurately.  In  Germany  the  State  means  the  system,  the 
mechanism  of  government,  inclusive  of  the  monarch's 
office  :  in  England  the  word  "  State "  is  more  nearly 
equivalent  to  the  word  "  people."  To  serve  the  system, 
the  government  machinery,  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
monarch,  and  government  is  not  a  changing  reflection  of 
the  people's  will,  but  a  permanent  apparatus  for  main- 
taining the  power  of  the  Crown,  harmonizing  and  recon- 
ciling the  sentiments  and  interests  of  all  parts  of  the 
Empire,  and  for  conducting  foreign  policy. 

It  may  be  objected  that  legislation  is  made  by  the 
Reichstag,  that  the  Reichstag  has  the  power  of  the  purse, 
and  that  it  is  elected  by  universal  suffrage ;  but  in  Ger- 
many the  Government  is  above  and  independent  of  the 
Reichstag;  legislation  is  not  made  by  the  Reichstag  alone, 
since  it  requires  the  agreement  of  the  Federal  Council 
and  of  the  Emperor,  and — what  is  of  great  practical 
importance — Government  issues  directions  as  to  how 
legislation  shall  be  carried  into  effect.  The  law  of  1872 
passed  against  the  Jesuits  forbade  the  "-activity"  of  the 
Order,  but  the  interpretation  of  the  word  "  activity,"  and 
with  it  the  effects  of  the  law,  were  left  to  the  Govern- 
ment. 

Kings  of  Prussia  and  German  Emperors  have  never 
shown  much  affection  for  their  Parliaments  :  Parliaments 
are  apt  to  act  as  a  check  upon  monarchy,  and  in  Prussia 
in  particular  to  interfere  with  the  carrying  out  of  the 
divinely  imposed  mission.  This  is  not  said  sarcastically, 
and  the  Emperor,  like  some  of  his  ancestors,  has  more 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          293 

than  once  expressed  the  same  thought.  Parliaments  in 
Germany  only  date  from  after  the  French  Revolution. 
After  that  event  there  came  into  existence  in  Germany 
the  Frankfurt  Parliament  (1848),  the  Erfurt  Parliament 
(1850),  and  the  Parliament  of  the  German  Customs  Union 
(1867).  These,  however,  were  not  popularly  elected 
Parliaments  like  those  of  the  present  day,  but  gatherings 
of  class  delegates  from  the  various  Kingdoms  and  States 
composing  the  Germany  and  Austria  of  the  time.  Since 
the  Middle  Ages  there  had  always  been  quasi-popular 
assemblies  in  Prussia,  but  they  too  were  not  elected,  and 
only  represented  classes,  not  constituencies.  The  present 
Parliaments  in  Prussia  and  the  Empire  are  Constitutional 
Parliaments  in  the  English  sense,  elected  by  universal 
suffrage,  the  one  indirectly,  the  other  directly. 

The  present  Prussian  Diet  dates  from  the  "First  Unified 
Diet,"  summoned  by  Frederick  William  IV  in  1847,  which 
was  transformed  next  year  under  pressure  of  the  revolu- 
tionists into  a  "  national  assembly."  This  was  treated  a 
year  after  by  General  Wrangel  almost  exactly  as  Crom- 
well treated  the  Rump.  The  General  entered  Berlin  with 
the  troops  which  a  few  weeks  before  had  fought  against 
the  revolutionists  of  the  "  March  days."  He  passed 
along  the  Linden  to  the  royal  theatre,  where  the  "  national 
assembly "  was  in  session,  and  was  met  at  the  door  by 
the  leader  of  the  citizens'  guard  with  the  proud  words, 
"  The  guard  is  resolved  to  protect  the  honour  of  the 
National  Assembly  and  the  freedom  of  the  people,  and 
will  only  yield  to  force." 

Wrangel  took  out  his  watch — one  can  imagine  the 
old  silver  "  turnip " — and  with  his  thumb  on  the  dial 
replied  :  "  Tell  your  city  guard  that  the  force  is  here. 
I  will  be  responsible  for  the  maintenance  of  order. 
The  National  Assembly  has  fifteen  minutes  in  which  to 
leave  the  building  and  the  city  guard  in  which  to 
withdraw." 


294  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  building  was  empty,  and 
next  day  the  city  guard  was  dissolved.  A  month  later 
the  King,  Frederick  William  IV,  granted  his  octroyierte 
Constitution — that  is,  a  concession  of  his  own  royal  per- 
sonal will — which  established  the  Diet  as  it  is  to-day. 

Emperor  William  I,  as  King  of  Prussia,  had  a  good 
deal  of  trouble  with  his  Parliament,  and  in  1852  wanted 
to  abdicate  rather  than  rule  in  obedience  to  a  parlia- 
mentary majority — it  was  the  "conflict  time"  about 
funds  for  army  reorganization.  Bismarck  dissuaded  him 
from  doing  so  by  promising  to  become  Minister  and 
carry  on  the  government,  if  need  were,  without  a  parlia- 
ment and  without  a  budget.  He  actually  did  so  for 
some  years,  but  there  was  no  change  in  the  Constitution 
as  a  result. 

Nor  has  there  been  any  constitutional  change  in  the 
relations  of  Crown  to  Parliament  during  the  present  reign. 
As  a  young  man,  the  Emperor  had  of  course  nothing 
to  do  with  Parliament,  Prussian  or  Imperial,  and  since 
his  accession,  though  there  is  always  latent  antagonism 
and  has  been  even  friction  at  times,  he  has,  generally 
speaking,  lived  on  "correct,"  if  not  friendly  terms  with 
it.  There  is  little,  if  any,  of  the  devoted  affection  one 
finds  for  the  monarch  in  the  English  Parliament. 

And  not  unnaturally.  Early  in  his  reign,  in  1891,  he 
made  a  reference  to  Parliament  little  calculated  to  evoke 
affection.  "The  soldier  and  the  army,"  he  said  to  his 
generals  at  a  banquet  in  the  palace,  "  not  parliamentary 
majorities  and  decisions,  have  welded  together  the 
German  Empire.  My  confidence  is  in  the  army — as 
my  grandfather  said  at  Coblenz  :  '  These  are  the  gentle- 
men on  whom  I  can  rely.' "  Again,  a  year  or  two 
afterwards  he  dissolved  the  Reichstag  for  refusing  to 
accept  a  military  bill  and  did  not  conceal  his  anger 
with  the  recalcitrant  majority.  In  1895  he  telegraphed 
to  Bismarck  his  indignation  with  the  Reichstag  for 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          295 

refusing  to  vote  its  congratulations  on  the  old  statesman's 
eightieth  birthday.  In  1897,  speaking  of  the  kingship 
"von  Gottes  Gnaden"  he  took  occasion  to  quote  his 
grandfather's  declaration  that  "it  was  a  kingship  with 
onerous  duties  from  which  no  man,  no  Minister,  no 
Parliament,  no  people"  could  release  the  Prince.  In 
1903  his  Chancellor,  Prince  Billow,  had  to  defend  in 
Parliament  his  action  in  the  case  of  the  Swinemunde 
despatch  already  mentioned.  Attention  was  called  to 
the  telegram  in  the  Reichstag  and  the  Chancellor 
defended  the  Emperor.  He  denied  that  the  telegram 
was  an  act  of  State — it  was  a  personal  matter  between 
two  sovereigns,  the  statement  of  a  friend  to  a  friend. 
"The  idea,"  said  the  Chancellor,  who  contended  that 
the  Emperor  had  a  right  to  express  his  opinions  like 
any  citizen,  "that  the  monarch's  expression  of  opinion 
is  to  be  limited  by  a  stipulation  that  every  such  expres- 
sion must  be  endorsed  with  the  signature  of  the 
Chancellor  is  wholly  foreign  to  the  Constitution." 

Next  day  the  Chancellor  had  again  occasion  to 
defend  his  imperial  master  against  a  charge  of  being 
"anti-social,"  brought  by  the  Socialist  von  Vollmar, 
who  coupled  the  charge  with  insinuations  of  absolutism 
and  Caesarism.  Prince  Billow  said:  "Absolutism  is 
not  a  German  word,  and  is  not  a  German  institution. 
It  is  an  Asiatic  plant,  and  one  cannot  talk  of  absolutism 
in  Germany  so  long  as  our  circumstances  develop  in 
an  organic  and  legal  manner,  respecting  the  rights  of 
the  Crown,  which  are  just  as  sacred  as  the  rights  of 
the  burgher;  respecting  also  law  and  order,  which  are 
not  disregarded  'from  above,'  and  will  not  be  disregarded. 
If  ever  our  circumstances  take  on  an  absolute,  a  Caesarian, 
form,  it  will  be  as  the  consequence  of  revolution,  of 
convulsion.  For  on  revolution  follows  Caesarism  as 
W  follows  U— that  is  the  rule  in  the  A  B  C  of  the  world's 
history." 


296  WILLIAM    OF    GERMANY 

There  is  no  harm  in  reminding  Prince  Biilow  that  the 
letter  V — which  may  be  a  very  important  link  in  the 
chain  of  events — comes  between  U  and  W.  It  is  clear 
also  that  the  Chancellor  must  have  forgotten  his  English 
history  for  the  moment,  for  though  Cromwell's  rule  may 
be  called  Caesarism  of  a  kind,  the  reign  of  William  III, 
of  "glorious,  pious,  and  immortal  memory,"  which 
followed  the  revolution  of  1688,  could  not  fairly  be  so 
named. 

Three  years  later,  in  1906,  Prince  Biilow  found  it 
necessary  to  defend  the  Emperor  on  the  score  of  the 
"  personal  regiment."  "  The  view,"  Prince  Biilow  said, 
"that  the  monarch  should  have  no  individual  thoughts 
of  his  own  about  State  and  government,  but  should  only 
think  with  the  heads  of  his  Ministers  and  only  say 
what  they  tell  him  to  say,  is  fundamentally  wrong — is 
inconsistent  with  State  rights  and  with  the  wish  of  the 
German  people  "  ;  and  he  concluded  by  challenging  the 
House  to  mention  a  single  case  in  which  the  Emperor 
had  acted  unconstitutionally.  None  of  these  bickerings 
between  Crown  and  Parliament  went  to  the  root  of  the 
constitutional  relations  between  them,  but  they  betrayed 
the  existence  of  popular  dissatisfaction  with  the  Emperor, 
which  in  a  couple  of  years  was  to  culminate  in  an  out- 
break of  national  anger. 

An  occurrence  calls  for  mention  here,  not  only  as  a 
kind  of  harbinger  of  the  "  storm,"  but  as  one  of  the  chief 
incidents  which  in  the  course  of  recent  years  have 
troubled  Anglo-German  relations.  The  incident  referred 
to  is  that  of  the  so-called  "  Tweedmouth  Letter,"  which 
was  an  autograph  letter  from  the  Emperor  to  Lord 
Tweedmouth,  First  Lord  of  the  British  Admiralty  at  the 
time,  dated  February  17,  1908,  and  containing  among 
other  matters  a  lengthy  disquisition  on  naval  construction, 
with  reference  to  the  excited  state  of  feeling  in  England 
caused  by  Germany's  warship-building  policy.  The 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          297 

letter  has  never  been  published,  but  it  is  supposed  to  have 
been  prompted  by  a  statement  made  publicly  by  Lord 
Esher,  Warden  of  Windsor  Castle,  in  the  London 
Observer,  to  the  effect  that  nothing  would  more  please 
the  German  Emperor  than  the  retirement  of  Sir  John 
Fisher,  the  originator  of  the  Dreadnought  policy,  who 
was  at  the  time  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty ;  and  to  have 
contained  the  remark  that  "  Lord  Esher  had  better  attend 
to  the  drains  at  Windsor  and  leave  alone  matters  which 
he  did  not  understand."  The  Emperor  was  apparently 
unaware  that  Lord  Esher  was  one  of  the  foremost 
military  authorities  in  England. 

The  sending  of  the  letter  became  known  through  the 
appearance  of  a  communication  in  the  London  Times  of 
March  6th,  with  the  caption  "  Under  which  King  ?  " — an 
allusion  to  Shakespeare's  "  Under  which  king,  Bezonian, 
speak  or  die " — and  signed  "  Your  Military  Corre- 
spondent." The  writer  announced  that  it  had  come 
to  his  knowledge  that  the  German  Emperor  had  recently 
addressed  a  letter  to  Lord  Tweedmouth  on  the  subject 
of  British  and  German  naval  policy,  and  that  it  was 
supposed  that  the  letter  amounted  to  an  attempt  to 
influence,  in  German  interests,  the  Minister's  responsi- 
bility for  the  British  Naval  Estimates.  The  corre- 
spondent concluded  by  demanding  that  the  letter  should 
be  laid  before  Parliament  without  delay.  The  Times, 
in  a  leading  article,  prognosticated  the  "  painful  surprise 
and  just  indignation"  which  must  be  felt  by  the  people 
of  Great  Britain  on  learning  of  such  "secret  appeals 
to  the  head  of  a  department  on  which  the  nation's 
safety  depends,"  and  argued  that  there  could  be  no 
question  of  privacy  in  a  matter  of  the  kind.  The  article 
concluded  with  the  assertion  that  the  letter  was  obviously 
an  attempt  to  "make  it  more  easy  for  German  preparations 
to  overtake  our  own."  The  incident  was  immediately 
discussed  in  all  countries,  publicly  and  privately. 


298  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Everywhere  opinion  was  divided  as  to  the  defensibility 
of  the  Emperor's  action  ;  in  France  the  division  was 
reported  by  the  Times  correspondent  to  be  "bewildering." 
All  the  evidence  available  to  prove  the  Emperor's  im- 
pulsiveness was  recalled — the  Kruger  telegram,  the 
telegram  to  Count  Goluchowski,  the  Austrian  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  after  the  Morocco  Conference,  character- 
izing him  as  a  "  brilliant  second  (to  Germany)  in  the  bout 
at  Algeciras,"  the  premature  telegram  conferring  the 
Order  of  Merit  on  General  Stoessel  after  the  fall  of  Port 
Arthur,  and  other  evidence,  relevant  and  irrelevant. 
Renter's  agent  in  Berlin  telegraphed  on  official  authority 
that  the  Emperor  "  had  written  as  a  naval  expert." 

On  the  whole,  continental  opinion  may  be  said  to  have 
leaned  in  favour  of  the  Emperor.  Mr.  Asquith,  the 
English  Prime  Minister,  at  once  made  the  statement  that 
the  letter  was  a  "  purely  private  communication,  couched 
in  an  entirely  friendly  spirit,"  that  it  had  not  been  laid 
before  the  Cabinet,  and  that  the  latter  had  come  to  a 
decision  about  the  Estimates  before  the  letter  arrived. 

All  eyes  and  ears  were  now  turned  to  Lord  Tweed- 
mouth,  and  on  March  loth  he  briefly  referred  to  the 
matter  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  received  the  letter,  he 
said,  in  the  ordinary  postal  way  ;  it  was  "  very  friendly  in 
tone  and  quite  informal "  ;  he  showed  it  to  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  who  agreed  with  him  that  it  should  be  treated  as  a 
private  letter,  not  as  an  official  one  ;  and  he  replied  to  it 
on  February  2oth,  "  also  in  an  informal  and  friendly 
manner."  A  discussion,  in  which  Lord  Lansdowne  and 
Lord  Rosebery  took  part,  followed,  the  former — to  give 
the  tone,  not  the  words  of  his  speech — handing  in  a  ver- 
dict of  "  Not  guilty,  but  don't  do  it  again,"  against  the 
Emperor,  and  laying  down  the  principle  that  "  such  a 
communication  as  that  in  question  must  not  be  allowed 
to  create  a  diplomatic  situation  different  from  that  which 
has  been  established  through  official  channels  and  docu- 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          299 

ments "  ;  and  Lord  Rosebery,  while  he  recognized  the 
importance  of  the  incident,  seeking  to  minimize  its  effects 
by  an  attitude  of  banter.  The  treatment  of  the  incident 
by  the  House  of  Commons  as  a  whole  gave  considerable 
satisfaction  in  Germany,  where  all  efforts  were  directed  to 
showing  malevolent  hostility  to  Germany  on  the  part  of 
the  Times. 

Prince  von  Biilow  dealt  with  the  letter  in  a  speech  on 
the  second  reading  of  the  Budget  on  March  24,  1908. 
After  referring  to  the  Union  Internationale  Interparle- 
mentaire,  which  was  to  meet  in  a  few  months  in  Berlin, 
and  to  the  "  very  unsatisfactory  situation  in  Morocco," 
he  said  : — 

"  From  various  remarks  which  have  been  dropped  in  the  course  of 
the  debate  I  gather  that  this  honourable  House  desires  me  to  make 
a  statement  as  to  the  letter  which  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser  last  month 
wrote  to  Lord  Tweedmouth.  On  grounds  of  discretion,  to  the 
observance  of  which  both  the  sender  and  receiver  of  a  private  letter 
are  equally  entitled,  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  lay  the  text  of  the  letter 
before  you,  and  I  add  that  I  regret  exceedingly  that  I  cannot  do  so. 
The  letter  could  be  signed  by  any  one  of  us,  by  any  sincere  friend  of 
good  relations  between  Germany  and  England  (hear,  hear).  The 
letter,  gentlemen,  was  in  form  and  substance  a  private  one,  and  at 
the  same  time  its  contents  were  of  a  political  nature.  The  one  fact 
does  not  exclude  the  other  ;  and  the  letter  of  a  sovereign,  an  imperial 
letter,  does  not,  from  the  fact  that  it  deals  with  political  questions, 
become  an  act  of  State  ('  Very  true,'  on  the  Right). 

"This  is  not — and  deputy  Count  Kanitz  yesterday  gave  appro- 
priate instances  in  support — the  first  political  letter  a  sovereign  has 
written,  and  our  Kaiser  is  not  the  first  sovereign  who  has  addressed 
to  foreign  statesmen  letters  of  a  political  character  which  are  not 
subject  to  control.  The  matter  here  concerns  a  right  of  action 
which  all  sovereigns  claim  and  which,  in  the  case  of  our  Kaiser  also, 
no  one  has  a  right  to  limit.  How  his  Majesty  proposes  to  make  use 
of  this  right  we  can  confidently  leave  to  the  imperial  sense  of  duty. 
It  is  a  gross,  in  no  way  justifiable  misrepresentation,  to  assert  that 
his  Majesty's  letter  to  Lord  Tweedmouth  amounts  to  an  attempt 
to  influence  the  Minister  responsible  for  the  naval  budget  in  the 
interests  of  Germany,  or  that  it  denotes  a  secret  interference  in  the 


300  WILLIAM  OF   GERMANY 

internal  affairs  of  the  British  Empire.  Our  Kaiser  is  the  last  person 
to  believe  that  the  patriotism  of  an  English  Minister  would  suffer 
him  to  accept  advice  from  a  foreign  country  as  to  the  drawing  up  of 
the  English  naval  budget  ('  Quite  right,'  hear,  hear).  What  is  true 
of  English  statesmen  is  true  also  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  every 
country  which  lays  claim  to  respect  for  its  independence  ('  Very 
true  ').  In  questions  of  defence  of  one's  own  country  every  people 
rejects  foreign  interference  and  is  guided  only  by  considerations 
bearing  on  its  own  security  and  its  own  needs  ('  Quite  right ').  Of 
this  right  to  self -judgment  and  self-defence  Germany  also  makes  use 
when  she  builds  a  fleet  to  secure  the  necessary  protection  for  her 
coasts  and  her  commerce  ('  Bravo  ! ').  This  defensive,  this  purely 
defensive  character  of  our  naval  programme  cannot,  in  view  of  the 
incessant  attempts  to  attribute  to  us  aggressive  views  with  regard  to 
England,  be  too  often  or  too  sharply  brought  forward  ('  Bravo  ! '). 
We  desire  to  live  in  peace  and  quietness  with  England,  and  therefore 
it  is  embittering  to  find  a  portion  of  the  English  Press  ever  speaking 
of  the  '  German  danger,'  although  the  English  fleet  is  many  times 
stronger  than  our  own,  although  other  lands  have  stronger  fleets 
than  us  and  are  working  no  less  zealously  at  their  development. 
Nevertheless  it  is  Germany,  ever  Germany,  and  only  Germany, 
against  which  public  opinion  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel  is 
excited  by  an  utterly  valueless  polemic  ('  Quite  right '). 

"  It  would  be,  gentlemen,"  the  Chancellor  continued,  "  in  the 
interests  of  appeasement  between  both  countries,  it  would  be  in  the 
interest  of  the  general  peace  of  the  world,  that  this  polemic  should 
cease.  As  little  as  we  challenge  England's  right  to  set  up  the  naval 
standard  her  responsible  statesmen  consider  necessary  for  the  main- 
tenance of  British  power  in  the  world  without  our  seeing  therein  a 
threat  against  ourselves,  so  little  can  she  take  it  ill  of  us  if  we  do  not 
wish  our  naval  construction  to  be  wrongly  represented  as  a  challenge 
against  England  (hear,  hear,  on  the  Right  and  Left).  Gentlemen, 
these  are  the  thoughts,  as  I  judge  from  your  assent,  which  we  all 
entertain,  which  find  expression  in  the  statements  of  all  speakers, 
and  which  are  in  harmony  with  all  our  views.  Accept  my  additional 
statement  that  in  the  letter  of  his  Majesty  to  Lord  Tweedmouth  one 
gentleman,  one  seaman,  talks  frankly  to  another,  that  our  Kaiser 
highly  appreciates  the  honour  of  being  an  admiral  of  the  British 
navy,  and  that  he  is  a  great  admirer  of  the  political  education  of  the 
British  people  and  of  their  fleet,  and  you  will  have  a  just  view  of  the 
tendency,  tone,  and  contents  of  the  imperial  letter  to  Lord  Tweed- 
mouth.  His  Majesty  consequently  finds  himself  in  this  letter  not 
only  in  full  agreement  with  the  Chancellor — I  may  mention  this 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          301 

specially  for  the  benefit  of  Herr  Bebel — but,  as  I  am  convinced,  in 
agreement  with  the  entire  nation.  It  would  be  deeply  regrettable 
if  the  honourable  opinions  by  which  our  Kaiser  was  moved  in 
writing  this  letter  should  be  misconstrued  in  England.  With  satis- 
faction I  note  that  the  attempts  at  such  misconstruction  have  been 
almost  unanimously  rejected  in  England  ('  Bravo  ! '  on  the  Right 
and  Left).  Above  all,  gentlemen,  I  believe  that  the  admirable  way 
in  which  the  English  Parliament  has  exemplarily  treated  the  ques- 
tion will  have  the  best  effect  in  preventing  a  disturbance  of  the 
friendly  relations  between  Germany  and  England  and  in  removing 
all  hostile  intention  from  the  discussions  over  the  matter  (agree- 
ment, Right  and  Left). 

"  Gentlemen,  one  more  observation  of  a  general  nature.  Deputies 
von  Hertling  and  Bassermann  have  recommended  us,  in  view  of  the 
suspicions  spread  about  us  abroad,  a  calm  and  watchful  attitude  of 
reserve,  and  for  the  treatment  of  the  country's  foreign  affairs  con- 
sistency, union,  and  firmness.  I  believe  that  the  foreign  policy  we 
must  follow  cannot  be  characterized  better  or  more  rightly 
(applause)." 

A  German  saying  has  it  that  one  is  wiser  coming  from, 
than  going  to,  the  Rathaus,  the  place  of  counsel.  It  is 
easy  to  see  now  that  it  would  have  been  better  had  the 
Emperor  not  written  the  letter,  better  had  the  Times  not 
brought  it  to  public  notice,  better,  also,  had  the  Emperor 
or  Lord  Tweedmouth  or  Sir  Edward  Grey — for  one  of 
them  must  have  spoken  of  it  to  a  third  person — not  let  its 
existence  become  known  to  anyone  save  themselves,  at 
least  not  until  the  international  situation  which  prompted 
it  had  ceased.  As  regards  the  Emperor  in  particular, 
judgment  must  be  based  on  the  answer  to  the  question, 
Was  the  letter  a  private  letter  or  a  public  document  ? 
The  Times  regarded  it  as  the  latter,  and  many  politicians 
took  that  view,  but  probably  nine  people  out  of  ten  now 
regard  it  as  the  former.  For  such,  the  reflection  that  it 
was  part  of  a  private  correspondence  between  two  friendly 
statesmen,  both  well  known  to  be  sincere  in  their  views 
that  a  country's  navy — that  all  military  preparations — are 
based  on  motives  of  national  defence,  not  of  high-handed 


302  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

aggression,  must  absolve  the  Emperor  from  any  suspicion 
of  political  immorality.  It  was  unfortunate  that  the  letter 
was  written,  unfortunate  that  it  was  made  known  publicly, 
but,  as  it  is  an  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  good,  the 
episode  may  profit  monarchs  'as  well  as  meaner  folk  as 
an  object  lesson  in  the  advantages  of  discretion. 

Discussion  of  the  Tweedmouth  letter  had  hardly  ceased 
when  the  whole  question  of  the  "  personal  regiment "  was 
again,  and  as  it  now,  five  years  after,  appears,  finally 
thrashed  out  between  the  Emperor  and  his  folk.  Before, 
however,  considering  the  Daily  Telegraph  interview  and 
the  Emperor's  part  in  it,  something  should  be  said  as  to 
the  state  of  international  ill-feeling  which  caused  him  to 
sanction  its  publication. 

The  ill-feeling  was  no  sudden  wave  of  hostility  or 
pique,  but  a  sentiment  which  had  for  years  existed  in  the 
minds  of  both  nations — a  sentiment  of  mutual  suspicion. 
The  Englishman  thought  Germany  was  prepared  to  dis- 
pute with  him  the  maritime  supremacy  of  Great  Britain, 
the  German  that  England  intended  to  attack  Germany 
before  Germany  could  carry  her  great  design  into  execu- 
tion. The  proximate  cause  of  the  irritation — for  it  has 
not  yet  got  beyond  that — was  the  decision,  as  announced 
in  her  Navy  Law  of  1898,  to  build  a  fleet  of  battleships 
which  Germany,  but  especially  the  Emperor,  considered 
necessary  to  complete  the  defences,  and  appropriate  for 
affirming  the  dignity,  of  the  Empire. 

This  was  the  origo,  but  not  the  fons.  The  source  was 
the  Boer  War  and  the  Kruger  telegram,  though  the  philo- 
sophic historian  might  with  some  reason  refer  it  in  a 
large  measure  also  to  the  surprise  and  uneasiness  with 
which  the  leading  colonial  and  commercial,  as  well  as 
maritime,  nation  of  the  world  saw  the  material  progress, 
the  waxing  military  power,  and  the  longing  for  expansion 
of  the  not  yet  forty-year-old  German  Empire.  Forty 
years  ago  the  word  "Germany"  had  no  territorial,  but 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          303 

only  a  descriptive  and  poetical,  significance ;  certainly  it 
had  no  political  significance ;  for  the  North  German 
Union,  out  of  which  the  modern  German  Empire  grew, 
meant  for  Englishmen,  and  indeed  for  politicians  every- 
where, only  Prussia.  Prussia  was  less  liked  by  the  world 
then  than  she  is  now,  when  she  is  not  liked  too  well ;  and 
accordingly  there  was  already  in  existence  the  disposition 
in  England  to  criticize  sharply  the  conduct  of  Prussia 
and  to  apply  the  same  criticism  to  the  Empire  Prussia 
founded.  In  this  condition  of  international  feeling  Eng- 
land's long  quarrel  with  the  Transvaal  Republic  came 
nearer  to  the  breaking-point ;  at  the  same  time  there  was 
an  idea  prevalent  in  England  that  Germany  was  coquet- 
ting with  the  Boers — if  not  looking  to  a  seizure  of  Trans- 
vaal territory,  at  least  hoping  for  Boer  favour  and  Boer 
commercial  privileges.  The  Jameson  Raid  was  made  and 
failed ;  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers  sent  the  fateful 
telegram  to  President  Kruger ;  and  the  peace  of  the 
world  has  been  in  jeopardy  ever  since  ! 

The  "  storm  "  arose  from  the  publication,  in  the  London 
Daily  Telegraph  of  October  28,  1908,  of  an  interview 
coming,  as  the  editor  said  in  introducing  it,  "from  a 
source  of  such  unimpeachable  authority  that  we  can 
without  hesitation  commend  the  obvious  message  which 
it  conveys  to  the  attention  of  the  public."  As  to  the 
origin  and  composition  of  the  interview  a  good  deal  of 
mystery  still  exists.  All  that  has  become  known  is  that 
some  one,  whose  identity  has  hitherto  successfully  been 
concealed,  with  the  object  of  demonstrating  the  senti- 
ments of  warm  friendship  with  which  the  Emperor 
regarded  England,  put  together,  in  England  or  in  Ger- 
many, a  number  of  statements  made  by  the  Emperor 
and  sanctioned  by  him  for  publication.  Whether  the 
Emperor  read  the  interview  previous  to  publication  or 
not,  no  official  statement  has  been  made ;  it  is,  however, 
quite  certain  that  he  did.  At  all  events  it  was  sent,  or 


304  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

sent  back,  to  England  and  published  in  due  course.  The 
immediate  effect  was  a  hubbub  of  discussion,  accom- 
panied with  general  astonishment  in  England,  a  storm  of 
popular  resentment  and  humiliation  in  Germany,  and 
voluminous  comment  in  other  countries,  some  of  it 
favourable,  some  of  it  unfavourable,  to  the  Emperor. 

The  text  of  the  interview  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  was 
introduced,  as  mentioned,  with  the  words  : — 

We  have  received  the  following  communication  from  a  source  of 
such  unimpeachable  authority  that  we  can  without  hesitation  com- 
mend the  obvious  message  which  it  conveys  to  the  attention  of  the 
public. 

And  continued  as  follows  : — 

Discretion  is  the  first  and  last  quality  requisite  in  a  diplomatist, 
and  should  still  be  observed  by  those  who,  like  myself,  have  long 
passed  from  public  into  private  life.  Yet  moments  sometimes  occur 
in  the  history  of  nations  when  a  calculated  indiscretion  proves  of 
the  highest  public  service,  and  it  is  for  that  reason  that  I  have 
decided  to  make  known  the  substance  of  a  lengthy  conversation 
which  it  was  my  recent  privilege  to  have  with  his  Majesty  the 
German  Emperor.  I  do  so  in  the  hope  that  it  may  help  to  remove 
that  obstinate  misconception  of  the  character  of  the  Kaiser's  feelings 
towards  England  which,  I  fear,  is  deeply  rooted  in  the  ordinary 
Englishman's  breast.  It  is  the  Emperor's  sincere  wish  that  it 
should  be  eradicated.  He  has  given  repeated  proofs  of  his  desire 
by  word  and  deed.  But,  to  speak  frankly,  his  patience  is  sorely 
tried  now  that  he  finds  himself  so  continually  misrepresented,  and 
has  so  often  experienced  the  mortification  of  finding  that  any 
momentary  improvement  of  relations  is  followed  by  renewed  out- 
bursts of  prejudice,  and  a  prompt  return  to  the  old  attitude  of 
suspicion. 

As  I  have  said,  his  Majesty  honoured  me  with  a  long  conversation, 
and  spoke  with  impulsive  and  unusual  frankness.  "  You  English," 
he  said,  "  are  mad,  mad,  mad  as  March  hares.  What  has  come  over 
you  that  you  are  so  completely  given  over  to  suspicions  quite 
unworthy  of  a  great  nation  ?  What  more  can  I  do  than  I  have 
done  ?  I  declared  with  all  the  emphasis  at  my  command,  in  my 
speech  at  Guildhall,  that  my  heart  is  set  upon  peace,  and  that  it  is 
one  of  my  dearest  wishes  to  live  on  the  best  of  terms  with  England. 


THE    NOVEMBER    STORM          305 

Have  I  ever  been  false  to  my  word  ?  Falsehood  and  prevarication 
are  alien  to  my  nature.  My  actions  ought  to  speak  for  themselves, 
but  you  listen  not  to  them  but  to  those  who  misinterpret  and  distort 
them.  That  is  a  personal  insult  which  I  feel  and  resent.  To  be  for 
ever  misjudged,  to  have  my  repeated  offers  of  friendship  weighed 
and  scrutinized  with  jealous,  mistrustful  eyes,  taxes  my  patience 
severely.  I  have  said  time  after  time  that  I  am  a  friend  of  England, 
and  your  Press — or,  at  least,  a  considerable  section  of  it — bids  the 
people  of  England  refuse  my  proffered  hand,  and  insinuates  that 
the  other  holds  a  dagger.  How  can  I  convince  a  nation  against 
its  will  ? " 

"  I  repeat,"  continued  his  Majesty,  "  that  I  am  the  friend  of 
England,  but  you  make  things  difficult  for  me.  My  task  is  not  of 
the  easiest.  The  prevailing  sentiment  among  large  sections  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  of  my  own  people  is  not  friendly  to 
England.  I  am,  therefore,  so  to  speak,  in  a  minority  in  my  own 
land,  but  it  is  a  minority  of  the  best  elements,  just  as  it  is  in 
England  with  respect  to  Germany.  That  is  another  reason  why  I 
resent  your  refusal  to  accept  my  pledged  word  that  I  am  the  friend 
of  England.  I  strive  without  ceasing  to  improve  relations,  and  you 
retort  that  I  am  your  arch-enemy.  You  make  it  very  hard  for  me. 
Why  is  it?" 

Thereupon  I  ventured  to  remind  his  Majesty  that  not  England 
alone,  but  the  whole  of  Europe  had  viewed  with  disapproval  the 
recent  action  of  Germany  in  allowing  the  German  Consul  to  return 
from  Tangier  to  Fez,  and  in  anticipating  the  joint  action  of  France 
and  Spain  by  suggesting  to  the  Powers  that  the  time  had  come  for 
Europe  to  recognize  Muley  Hand  as  the  new  Sultan  of  Morocco. 

His  Majesty  made  a  gesture  of  impatience.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "that 
is  an  excellent  example  of  the  way  in  which  German  action  is  mis- 
represented. First,  then,  as  regards  the  journey  of  Dr.  Vassel.  The 
German  Government,  in  sending  Dr.  Vassel  back  to  his  post  at  Fez, 
was  only  guided  by  the  wish  that  he  should  look  after  the  private 
interests  of  German  subjects  in  that  city,  who  cried  for  help  and 
protection  after  the  long  absence  of  a  Consular  representative.  And 
why  not  send  him  ?  Are  those  who  charge  Germany  with  having 
stolen  a  march  on  the  other  Powers  aware  that  the  French  Consular 
representative  had  already  been  in  Fez  for  several  months  when  Dr. 
Vassel  set  out  ?  Then,  as  to  the  recognition  of  Muley  ;Hafid.  The 
Press  of  Europe  has  complained  with  much  acerbity  that  Germany 
ought  not  to  have  suggested  his  recognition  until  he  had  notified  to 
Europe  his  full  acceptance  of  the  Act  of  Algeciras,  as  being  binding 
upon  him  as  Sultan  of  Morocco  and  successor  of  his  brother.  My 
x 


306  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

answer  is  that  Muley  Hafid  notified  the  Powers  to  that  effect  weeks 
ago,  before  the  decisive  battle  was  fought.  He  sent,  as  far  back 
as  the  middle  of  last  July,  an  identical  communication  to  the 
Governments  of  Germany,  France,  and  Great  Britain,  containing  an 
explicit  acknowledgment  that  he  was  prepared  to  recognize  all  the 
obligations  towards  Europe  which  were  incurred  by  Abdul  Aziz 
during  his  Sultanate.  The  German  Government  interpreted  that 
communication  as  a  final  and  authoritative  expression  of  Muley 
Hafid's  intentions,  and  therefore  they  considered  that  there  was  no 
reason  to  wait  until  he  had  sent  a  second  communication,  before 
recognizing  him  as  the  de,  facto  Sultan  of  Morocco,  who  had 
succeeded  to  his  brother's  throne  by  right  of  victory  in  the  field." 

I  suggested  to  his  Majesty  that  an  important  and  influential 
section  of  the  German  Press  had  placed  a  very  different  interpreta- 
tion upon  the  action  of  the  German  Government,  and,  in  fact,  had 
given  it  their  effusive  approbation  precisely  because  they  saw  in  it  a 
strong  act  instead  of  mere  words,  and  a  decisive  indication  that 
Germany  was  once  more  about  to  intervene  in  the  shaping  of  events 
in  Morocco.  "  There  are  mischief-makers,"  replied  the  Emperor, 
"  in  both  countries.  I  will  not  attempt  to  weigh  their  relative 
capacity  for  misrepresentation.  But  the  facts  are  as  I  have  stated. 
There  has  been  nothing  in  Germany's  recent  action  with  regard  to 
Morocco  which  runs  contrary  to  the  explicit  declaration  of  my  love 
of  peace  which  I  made  both  at  Guildhall  and  in  my  latest  speech 
at  Strassburg." 

His  Majesty  then  reverted  to  the  subject  uppermost  in  his  mind — 
his  proved  friendship  for  England.  "  I  have  referred,"  he  said,  "  to 
the  speeches  in  which  I  have  done  all  that  a  sovereign  can  to  pro- 
claim my  goodwill.  But,  as  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  let 
me  also  refer  to  my  acts.  It  is  commonly  believed  in  England  that 
throughout  the  South  African  War  Germany  was  hostile  to  her. 
German  opinion  undoubtedly  was  hostile — bitterly  hostile.  The 
Press  was  hostile ;  private  opinion  was  hostile.  But  what  of 
official  Germany  ?  Let  my  critics  ask  themselves  what  brought  to  a 
sudden  stop,  and,  indeed,  to  absolute  collapse,  the  European  tour  of 
the  Boer  delegates  who  were  striving  to  obtain  European  interven- 
tion ?  They  were  feted  in  Holland  ;  France  gave  them  a  rapturous 
welcome.  They  wished  to  come  to  Berlin,  where  the  German 
people  would  have  crowned  them  with  flowers.  But  when  they 
asked  me  to  receive  them — I  refused.  The  agitation  immediately 
died  away,  and  the  delegation  returned  empty-handed.  Was  that, 
I  ask,  the  action  of  a  secret  enemy  ? 

"  Again,  when  the  struggle  was  at  its  height,  the  German  Govern- 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          307 

ment  was  invited  by  the  Governments  of  France  and  Russia  to  join 
with  them  in  calling  upon  England  to  put  an  end  to  the  war.  The 
moment  had  come,  they  said,  not  only  to  save  the  Boer  Republics, 
but  also  to  humiliate  England  to  the  dust.  What  was  my  reply  ?  I 
said  that  so  far  from  Germany  joining  in  any  concerted  European 
action  to  put  pressure  upon  England  and  bring  about  her  downfall, 
Germany  would  always  keep  aloof  from  politics  that  could  bring  her 
into  complications  with  a  Sea  Power  like  England.  Posterity  will 
one  day  read  the  exact  terms  of  the  telegram — now  in  the  archives 
of  Windsor  Castle — in  which  I  informed  the  Sovereign  of  England 
of  the  answer  I  had  returned  to  the  Powers  which  then  sought  to 
compass  her  fall.  Englishmen  who  now  insult  me  by  doubting  my 
word  should  know  what  were  my  actions  in  the  hour  of  their 
adversity. 

"  Nor  was  that  all.  Just  at  the  time  of  your  Black  Week,  in  the 
December  of  1899,  when  disasters  followed  one  another  in  rapid 
succession,  I  received  a  letter  from  Queen  Victoria,  my  revered 
grandmother,  written  in  sorrow  and  affliction,  and  bearing  manifest 
traces  of  the  anxieties  which  were  preying  upon  her  mind  and 
health.  I  at  once  returned  a  sympathetic  reply.  Nay,  I  did  more. 
I  bade  one  of  my  officers  procure  for  me  as  exact  an  account  as  he 
could  obtain  of  the  number  of  combatants  in  South  Africa  on  both 
sides,  and  of  the  actual  position  of  the  opposing  forces.  With  the 
figures  before  me,  I  worked  out  what  I  considered  to  be  the  best 
plan  of  campaign  under  the  circumstances,  and  submitted  it  to  my 
General  Staff  for  their  criticism.  Then  I  dispatched  it  to  England, 
and  that  document,  likewise,  is  among  the  State  papers  at  Windsor 
Castle,  awaiting  the  serenely  impartial  verdict  of  history.  And,  as 
a  matter  of  curious  coincidence,  let  me  add  that  the  plan  which  I 
formulated  ran  very  much  on  the  same  lines  as  that  which  was 
actually  adopted  by  Lord  Roberts,  and  carried  by  him  into 
successful  operation.  Was  that,  I  repeat,  the  act  of  one  who  wished 
England  ill  ?  Let  Englishmen  be  just  and  say  ! 

"  But,  you  will  say,  what  of  the  German  navy  ?  Surely  that  is  a 
menace  to  England  !  Against  whom  but  England  are  my  squadrons 
being  prepared  ?  If  England  is  not  in  the  minds  of  those  Germans 
who  are  bent  on  creating  a  powerful  fleet,  why  is  Germany 
asked  to  consent  to  such  new  and  heavy  burdens  of  taxation  ?  My 
answer  is  clear.  Germany  is  a  young  and  growing  Empire.  She 
has  a  world-wide  commerce,  which  is  rapidly  expanding,  and  to 
which  the  legitimate  ambition  of  patriotic  Germans  refuses  to 
assign  any  bounds.  Germany  must  have  a  powerful  fleet  to  protect 
that  commerce,  and  her  manifold  interests  in  even  the  most 


308  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

distant  seas.  She  expects  those  interests  to  go  on  growing,  and  she 
must  be  able  to  champion  them  manfully  in  any  quarter  of  the 
globe.  Germany  looks  ahead.  Her  horizons  stretch  far  away. 
She  must  be  prepared  for  any  eventualities  in  the  Far  East.  Who 
can  foresee  what  may  take  place  in  the  Pacific  in  the  days  to  come 
— days  not  so  distant  as  some  believe,  but  days,  at  any  rate,  for  which 
all  European  Powers  with  Far  Eastern  interests  ought  steadily  to 
prepare  ?  Look  at  the  accomplished  rise  of  Japan  ;  think  of  the 
possible  national  awakening  of  China ;  and  then  judge  of  the 
vast  problems  of  the  Pacific.  Only  those  Powers  which  have 
great  navies  will  be  listened  to  with  respect  when  the  future  of 
the  Pacific  comes  to  be  solved  ;  and  if  for  that  reason  only 
Germany  must  have  a  powerful  fleet.  It  may  even  be  that 
England  herself  will  be  glad  that  Germany  has  a  fleet  when 
they  speak  together  on  the  same  side  in  the  great  debates  of  the 
future." 

Such  was  the  purport  of  the  Emperor's  conversation.  He  spoke 
with  all  that  earnestness  which  marks  his  manner  when  speaking  on 
deeply  pondered  subjects.  I  would  ask  my  fellow-countrymen  who 
value  the  cause  of  peace  to  weigh  what  I  have  written,  and  to 
revise,  if  necessary,  their  estimate  of  the  Kaiser  and  his  friendship 
for  England  by  his  Majesty's  own  words.  If  they  had  enjoyed  the 
privilege,  which  was  mine,  of  hearing  them  spoken,  they  would 
doubt  no  longer  either  his  Majesty's  firm  desire  to  live  on  the  best 
of  terms  with  England  or  his  growing  impatience  at  the  persistent 
mistrust  with  which  his  offer  of  friendship  is  too  often  received. 

There  are  more  indiscretions  than  one  in  the  inter- 
view, but  the  most  important  and  most  dangerous  was 
the  Emperor's  statement  that  at  the  time  of  the  Boer  War 
the  Governments  of  France  and  Russia  invited  the  German 
Government  to  join  with  them  "not  only  to  save  the 
Boer  Republics,  but  also  to  humiliate  England  to  the 
dust."  Such  a  revelation  coming  from  the  Emperor 
ought,  one  would  suppose,  to  have  caused  serious 
trouble  between  Great  Britain  and  her  Entente  friends. 
That  it  did  not  is  at  once  testimony  to  the  cynicism 
of  Governments  and  the  reality  and  strength  of  the 
Entente  engagement.  In  private  life,  if  a  fourth  person 
confidentially  told  one  of  the  three  partners  in  a  firm 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          309 

that  the  other  two  partners  had  invited  him  to  join  them 
in  humiliating  him  to  the  dust,  there  would  have  been 
a  pretty  brisk,  not  to  say  acrimonious  correspondence 
between  the  proposed  victim  and  his  partners.  Govern- 
ments, it  appears,  look  on  things  differently,  and  so 
far  as  the  public  knows,  England  simply  took  no  notice 
of  the  Emperor's  communication.  Possibly,  however, 
the  Emperor  had  put  the  matter  too  strongly  and  an 
explanation  of  some  kind  was  forthcoming.  If  so, 
it  must  be  looked  for  among  the  secret  archives  of 
the  Foreign  Office.  It  was  at  once  suggested  that 
the  Emperor  made  the  revelation  expressly  to  weaken, 
if  not  destroy,  the  Entente.  One  can  conceive  Bismarck 
doing  such  a  thing  ;  but  it  is  more  in  keeping  with  the 
Emperor's  character,  and  with  the  indiscreet  character 
of  the  entire  interview,  to  suppose  it  to  be  a  proof  of 
deplorable  candour  and  sincerity. 

The  excitement  in  Germany  caused  by  the  publication 
of  the  interview  soon  took  the  shape  of  a  determination 
on  the  part  of  the  Chancellor  and  the  Federal  Council, 
for  once  fully  identifying  themselves  with  the  feelings 
of  Parliament,  Press,  and  people,  that  "  something  must 
be  done,"  and  it  was  decided  that  the  Chancellor  should 
go  to  Potsdam,  see  the  Emperor,  and  try  to  obtain  from 
him  a  promise  to  be  more  cautious  in  his  utterances 
on  political  topics  for  the  future.  The  Chancellor  went 
accordingly,  being  seen  off  from  the  railway  terminus 
in  Berlin  by  a  large  crowd  of  people,  among  whom  were 
many  journalists.  To  Dr.  Paul  Goldmann,  who  wished 
him  God-speed,  he  could  only  reply  that  he  hoped  all 
would  be  for  the  best.  He  looked  pale  and  grave,  as  well 
he  might,  since  he  was  about  to  stake  his  own  position 
as  well  as  convey  a  mandate  of  national  reproach. 

What  passed  at  Potsdam  between  the  Emperor  and 
his  Chancellor  has  not  transpired.  Naturally  there  are 
various  accounts  of  it,  one  of  them  representing  the 


3io  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Emperor  as  flying  into  a  passion  and  for  long  refusing 
to  give  the  required  guarantees  ;  but  as  yet  none  of  them 
has  been  authenticated.  It  should  not  be  difficult  to 
imagine  the  mental  attitudes  of  the  two  men  on  the 
occasion,  and  especially  not  difficult  to  imagine  the 
sensations  of  the  Emperor,  a  Prussian  King,  on  being 
impeached  by  a  people — his  people — for  whom,  his 
feeling  would  be,  he  had  done  so  much,  and  in  whose 
best  interests  he  felt  convinced  he  had  acted  ;  but  what- 
ever occurred,  it  ended  in  the  Emperor  bowing  before 
the  storm  and  giving  the  assurances  required. 

The  Chancellor's  countenance  and  expressions  on  his 
return  to  Berlin  showed  that  his  mission  had  been 
successful,  and  there  was  great  satisfaction  in  the  capital 
and  country.  The  text  of  these  assurances,  which  was 
published  in  the  Official  Gazette  the  same  evening,  was 
as  follows  :  "His  Majesty,  while  unaffected  by  public 
criticism  which  he  regards  as  exaggerated,  considers  his 
most  honourable  imperial  task  to  consist  in  securing  the 
stability  of  the  policy  of  the  Empire  while  adhering 
to  the  principle  of  constitutional  responsibility.  The 
Kaiser  accordingly  endorses  the  statements  of  the 
Imperial  Chancellor  in  Parliament,  and  assures  Prince 
von  Bvilow  of  his  continued  confidence." 

After  returning  to  Berlin,  Prince  Biilow  gave  in 
the  Reichstag  his  impatiently  awaited  account  of  the 
result  of  his  mission,  and  made  what  defence  he  could 
of  his  imperial  master's  action  in  allowing  the  famous 
interview  to  be  published.  Before  giving  the  speech, 
which  was  delivered  on  November  10,  1908,  it  will 
be  as  well  to  quote  the  five  interpellations  introduced 
in  Parliament  on  the  subject,  as  showing  the  unanimity 
of  feeling  that  existed  in  all  parts  of  the  House  : — 

i.  By  Deputy  Bassermann  (leader  of  the  National 
Liberals) :  "  Is  the  Chancellor  prepared  to  take  consti- 
tutional responsibility  for  the  publication  of  a  series 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          311 

of  utterances  of   his   Majesty   the    Kaiser   in   the    Daily 
Telegraph  and  the  facts  communicated  therein  ?  " 

2.  By     Deputy     Dr.     Ablass     (Progressive      Party) : 
"  Through  the  publication  of  utterances  of  the  German 
Kaiser  in   the  Daily   Telegraph,  and  through   the   com- 
munication    of     the    real    facts    in     the    Norddeutsche 
Allgemeine  Zeitung  caused   by  the    Chancellor,   matters 
have  become  known   which  demonstrate  serious   short- 
comings  in   the   treatment   of   foreign   affairs,    and  are 
calculated   to   influence    unfavourably    the   relations    of 
the   German    Empire  to  other  Powers.     What  does  the 
Chancellor  propose   to  do   to  devise   a  remedy  and  to 
give   full  effect   to  the  responsibility  attributed  to   him 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  German  Empire  ?  " 

3.  By    Deputy    Albrecht    (Socialist)  :  "  What    is    the 
Chancellor  prepared  to  do  to  prevent  such  occurrences 
as  have  become  known   through   the   Daily   Telegraph's 
communications  regarding   acts    and   utterances    of   the 
German  Kaiser  ?  " 

4.  By    Deputy    von    Norman    (Conservative    Party) : 
"  Is  the  Chancellor  prepared  to  submit  further  informa- 
tion   regarding    the    circumstances    which    led    to    the 
publication  of  utterances  of   his    Majesty    the  Kaiser  in 
the  English  Press?" 

5.  By  Prince  von  Hatzfeldt  and  Freiherr  von  Gamp 
(Imperial     Party — Conservative)  :    "Is    the    Chancellor 
willing    to   take   precautions   that   such   occurrences   as 
that   brought   to  light   by  the  publication  in   the   Daily 
Telegraph  shall  not  recur  ?  " 

In  reply  to  the  interpellations  Prince  von  Biilow 
said  : — 

"Gentlemen,  I  shall  not  apply  myself  to  every  point  which  has 
just  been  raised  by  previous  speakers.  I  have  to  consider  the 
effect  of  my  words  abroad,  and  will  not  add  to  the  great  harm 
already  caused  by  the  publication  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  (hear, 
hear,  on  the  Left  and  Socialists). 


312  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

"In  reply  to  the  interpellations  submitted,  I  have  to  declare 
as  follows  : — 

"  His  Majesty  the  Kaiser  has  at  different  times,  and  to  different 
private  English  personalities,  made  private  utterances  which,  linked 
together,  have  been  published  in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  I  must 
suppose  that  not  all  details  of  the  utterances  have  been  correctly 
reproduced  (hear,  hear,  on  the  Right).  One  I  know  is  not  correct  : 
that  is  the  story  about  the  plan  of  campaign  (hear,  hear,  on  the 
right).  The  plan  in  question  was  not  a  field  campaign  worked  out 
in  detail,  but  a  purely  academic  (laughter  among  the  Socialists) 
— "Gentlemen,  we  are  engaged  in  a  serious  discussion.  The 
matters  on  which  I  speak  are  of  an  earnest  kind  and  of  great 
political  importance — be  good  enough  to  listen  to  me  quietly  : 
I  will  be  as  brief  as  possible.  I  repeat  therefore  :  the  matter  is 
not  concerned  with  a  field  campaign  worked  out  in  detail,  but 
with  certain  purely  academic  thoughts — I  believe  they  were 
expressly  described  as  'aphorisms' — about  the  conduct  of  war 
in  general,  which  the  Kaiser  communicated  in  his  interchange 
of  correspondence  with  the  late  Queen  Victoria.  They  are 
theoretical  observations  of  no  practical  moment  for  the  course 
of  operations  and  the  issue  of  the  war.  The  chief  of  the  General 
Staff,  General  von  Moltke,  and  his  predecessor,  General  Count 
Schlieffen,  have  declared  that  the  General  Staff  reported  to  the 
Kaiser  on  the  Boer  War  as  on  every  war,  great  or  small,  which  has 
occurred  on  the  earth  during  the  last  ten  years.  Both,  however, 
have  given  assurances  that  our  General  Staff  never  examined  a  field 
plan  of  campaign,  or  anything  similar,  prepared  by  the  Kaiser 
in  view  of  the  Boer  War,  or  forwarded  such  to  England  (hear,  hear, 
on  the  Right  and  Centre).  But  I  must  also  defend  our  policy  against 
the  reproach  of  being  ambiguous  vis-a-vis  the  Boers.  We  had — the 
documents  show  it — given  timely  warning  to  the  Transvaal  Govern- 
ment. We  called  its  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  case  of  a  war  with 
England  it  would  stand  alone.  We  put  it  to  her  directly,  and 
through  the  friendly  Dutch  Government  in  May,  1899,  peacefully 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  England,  since  there  could  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  result  of  a  war. 

"  In  the  question  of  intervention  the  colours  in  the  article  of  the 
Daily  Telegraph  are  too  thickly  laid  on.  The  thing  itself  had  long 
been  known  (hear,  hear).  It  was  some  time  previously  the  subject 
of  controversy  between  the  National  Review  and  the  Deutsche  Revue. 
There  can  be  no  talk  of  a  '  revelation.'  It  was  said  that  the  imperial 
communication  to  the  Queen  of  England,  that  Germany  had  not 
paid  any  attention  to  a  suggestion  for  mediation  or  intervention,  is  a 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          313 

breach  of  the  rules  of  diplomatic  intercourse.  Gentlemen,  I  will 
not  recall  indiscretions  to  memory,  for  they  are  frequent  in  the 
diplomatic  history  of  all  nations  and  at  all  times  ('  Quite  right,'  on 
the  Right).  The  safest  policy  is  perhaps  that  which  need  fear  no 
indiscretion  ('  Quite  right,'  on  the  Left).  To  pass  judgment  in  par- 
ticular cases  as  to  whether  or  not  a  breach  of  confidence  has  occurred, 
one  must  know  more  of  the  closely  connected  circumstances  than 
appears  in  the  article  of  the  Daily  Telegraph.  The  communication 
might  be  justified  if  it  were  attempted  in  one  quarter  or  another  to 
misrepresent  our  refusal  or  to  throw  suspicion  on  our  attitude  ; 
circumstances  may  have  previously  happened  which  make  allusion 
to  the  subject  in  a  confidential  correspondence  at  least  intelligible. 
Gentlemen,  I  said  before  that  many  of  the  expressions  used  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph  article  are  too  strong.  That  is  true,  in  the  first  place, 
of  the  passage  where  the  Kaiser  is  represented  as  having  said  that  the 
majority  of  the  German  people  are  inimically  disposed  towards 
England.  Between  Germany  and  England  misunderstandings  have 
occurred,  serious,  regrettable  misunderstandings.  But  I  am  con- 
scious of  being  at  one  with  this  entire  honourable  House  in  the  view 
that  the  German  people  desire  peaceful  and  friendly  relations  with 
England  on  the  basis  of  mutual  esteem  (loud  and  general  applause) 
— and  I  take  note  that  the  speakers  of  all  parties  have  spoken  to-day 
in  the  same  sense  ('  Quite  right ').  The  colours  are  also  too  thickly 
laid  on  in  the  place  where  reference  is  made  to  our  interests  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  It  has  been  construed  in  a  sense  hostile  to  Japan. 
Wrongly :  we  have  never  in  the  Far  East  thought  of  anything  but 
this — to  acquire  and  maintain  for  Germany  a  share  of  the  commerce 
of  Eastern  Asia  in  view  of  the  great  economic  future  of  this  region. 
We  are  not  thinking  of  maritime  adventure  there :  aggressive 
tendencies  have  as  little  to  say  to  our  naval  construction  in  the 
Pacific  as  in  Europe.  Moreover,  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser  entirely 
agrees  with  the  responsible  director  of  foreign  policy  in  the  complete 
recognition  of  the  high  political  importance  which  the  Japanese 
people  have  achieved  by  their  political  strength  and  military  ability. 
German  policy  does  not  regard  it  as  its  task  to  detract  from  the 
enjoyment  and  development  of  what  Japan  has  acquired. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am,  generally  speaking,  under  the  impression  that 
if  the  material  facts — completely,  in  their  proper  shape — were 
individually  known,  the  sensation  would  be  no  great  one ;  in  this 
instance,  too,  the  whole  is  more  than  all  the  parts  taken  together. 
But  above  all,  gentlemen,  one  must  not,  while  considering  the 
material  things,  quite  forget  the  psychology,  the  tendency.  For  two 
decades  our  Kaiser  has  striven,  often  under  very  difficult  circum- 


3H  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

stances,  to  bring  about  friendly  relations  between  Germany  and 
England.  This  honest  endeavour  has  had  to  contend  with  obstacles 
which  would  have  discouraged  many.  The  passionate  partisanship 
of  our  people  for  the  Boers  was  humanly  intelligible  ;  feeling  for  the 
weaker  certainly  appeals  to  the  sympathy.  But  this  partisanship 
has  led  to  unjustified,  and  often  unmeasured,  attacks  on  England, 
and  similarly  unjust  and  hateful  attacks  have  been  made  against 
Germany  from  the  side  of  the  English.  Our  aims  were  misconstrued, 
and  hostile  plans  against  England  were  foisted  on  us  which  we  had 
never  thought  of.  The  Kaiser,  rightly  convinced  that  this  state  of 
things  was  a  calamity  for  both  countries  and  a  danger  for  the 
civilized  world,  kept  undeviatingly  on  the  course  he  had  adopted. 
The  Kaiser  is  particularly  wronged  by  any  doubt  as  to  the  purity  of 
his  intentions,  his  ideal  way  of  thinking,  and  his  deep  love  of 
country. 

"Gentlemen,  let  us  avoid  anything  that  looks  like  exaggerated 
seeking  for  foreign  favour,  anything  that  looks  like  uncertainty  or 
obsequiousness.  But  I  understand  that  the  Kaiser,  precisely  because 
he  was  anxious  to  work  zealously  and  honestly  for  good  relationship 
with  England,  felt  embittered  at  being  ever  the  object  of  attacks 
casting  suspicion  on  his  best  motives.  Has  one  not  gone  so  far  as 
to  attribute  to  his  interest  in  the  German  fleet  secret  views  against 
vital  English  interests — views  which  are  far  from  him.  And  so  in 
private  conversation  with  English  friends  he  sought  to  bring  the 
proof,  by  pointing  to  his  conduct,  that  in  England  he  was  misunder- 
stood and  wrongly  judged. 

"  Gentlemen,  the  perception  that  the  publication  of  these  con- 
versations in  England  has  not  had  the  effect  the  Kaiser  wished, 
and  in  our  own  country  has  caused  profound  agitation  and  painful 
regret,  will — this  firm  conviction  I  have  acquired  during  these 
anxious  days — lead  the  Kaiser  for  the  future,  in  private  conversation 
also,  to  maintain  the  reserve  that  is  equally  indispensable  in  the 
interest  of  a  uniform  policy  and  for  the  authority  of  the  Crown 
('  Bravo  ! '  on  the  Right). 

"  If  it  were  not  so,  I  could  not,  nor  could  my  successor,  bear  the 
responsibility  ('  Bravo  ! '  on  the  Right  and  National  Liberals). 

"  For  the  fault  which  occurred  in  dealing  with  the  manuscript 
I  accept,  as  I  have  caused  to  be  said  in  the  Norddeutsche  AUgemeine 
Zeitung,  entire  responsibility.  It  also  goes  against  my  personal 
feelings  that  officials  who  have  done  their  duty  all  their  lives  should 
be  stamped  as  transgressors  because,  in  a  single  case,  they  relied 
too  much  on  the  fact  that  I  usually  read  and  finally  decide  everything 
myself. 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          315 

"With  Herr  von  Heydcbrand  I  regret  that  in  the  mechanism 
of  the  Foreign  Office,  which  for  eleven  years  has  worked  smoothly 
under  me,  a  defect  should  on  one  occasion  occur.  I  will  answer 
for  it  that  such  a  thing  does  not  happen  again,  and  that  with  this 
object,  without  respect  to  persons,  though  also  without  injustice, 
what  is  needful  will  be  done  ('  Bravo  ! '). 

"  When  the  article  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  appeared,  its  fateful 
effect  could  not  for  a  moment  be  doubtful  to  me,  and  I  handed 
in  my  resignation.  This  decision  was  unavoidable,  and  was  not 
difficult  to  come  to.  The  most  serious  and  most  difficult  decision 
which  I  ever  took  in  my  political  life  was,  in  obedience  to  the  Kaiser's 
wish,  to  remain  in  office.  I  brought  myself  to  this  decision  only 
because  I  saw  in  it  a  command  of  my  political  duty,  precisely  in  the 
time  of  trouble,  to  continue  to  serve  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser  and 
the  country  (repeated  '  Bravo  ! ').  How  long  that  will  be  possible 
for  me,  I  cannot  say. 

"  Let  me  say  one  thing  more  :  at  a  moment  when  the  fact  that  in 
the  world  much  is  once  again  changing  requires  serious  attention 
to  be  given  to  the  entire  situation,  wherever  it  is  matter  of  concern 
to  maintain  our  position  abroad,  and  without  pushing  ourselves 
forward  with  quiet  constancy  to  make  good  our  interests — at  such  a 
moment  we  ought  not  to  show  ourselves  small-spirited  in  foreign 
eyes,  nor  make  out  of  a  misfortune  a  catastrophe.  I  will  refrain 
from  all  criticism  of  the  exaggerations  we  have  lived  through  during 
these  last  days.  The  harm  is — as  calm  reflection  will  show — 
not  so  great  that  it  cannot  with  circumspection  be  made  good. 
Certainly  no  one  should  forget  the  warning  which  the  events  of  these 
days  has  given  us  ('  Bravo  ! ') — but  there  is  no  reason  to  lose  our 
heads  and  awake  in  our  opponents  the  hope  that  the  Empire, 
inwardly  or  outwardly,  is  maimed. 

"  It  is  for  the  chosen  representatives  of  the  nation  to  exhibit  the 
prudence  which  the  time  demands.  I  do  not  say  it  for  myself,  I  say 
it  for  the  country  :  the  support  required  for  this  is  no  favour,  it  is  a 
duty  which  this  honourable  House  will  not  evade  (loud  applause  on 
the  Right,  hisses  from  the  Socialists). 

Prince  Billow's  speech  requires  but  little  comment — 
its  importance  for  Germany  is  the  fact  that  it  brought 
to  a  head  the  country's  feeling,  that  if  the  Emperor's 
unlimited  and  unrestrained  idea  of  his  heaven-sent 
mission  as  sole  arbiter  of  the  nation's  destinies  was  not 
checked,  disaster  must  ensue.  The  speech  itself  is  rather 


316  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

an  apology  and  an  explanation  than  a  defence,  and  in 
this  spirit  it  was  accepted  in  Germany.  It  is  fair  to  say 
that  the  Emperor  has  faithfully  kept  the  engagement 
made  through  Prince  Biilow  with  his  people  so  far,  and 
unless  human  nature  is  incurable  there  seems  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  keep  it  to  the  end  of  the  reign. 
More  than  four  years  have  passed  since  the  incidents 
narrated  occurred.  The  storm  has  blown  over,  the  sea 
of  popular  indignation  has  gone  down,  and  at  present 
no  cloud  is  visible  on  the  horizon. 

Besides  the  Tweedmouth  Letter  and  the  "November 
Storm"  there  were  one  or  two  other  notable  events  in 
the  parliamentary  proceedings  of  the  year.  The  Reichstag 
dealt  with  Prussian  electoral  reform  and  the  attitude  of 
Germany  towards  the  question  of  disarmament.  As  to 
the  first,  the  Government  refused  to  regard  it  as  an 
imperial  concern,  though  the  popular  claim  was  and  is 
that  the  suffrage  should  be  the  same  in  Prussia  as  in  the 
Empire,  viz.,  universal,  direct,  and  secret.  This  claim 
the  Emperor  will  not  listen  to,  on  the  ground  that  it 
would  injure  the  influence  of  the  middle  classes  by  the 
admission  of  undesirable  elements  (meaning  the  Social- 
ists) ;  that  the  electoral  system  for  the  Empire,  with  the 
latter's  national  tasks,  should  be  on  a  broader  basis  than 
in  the  case  of  the  individual  States,  where  the  electors  are 
chiefly  concerned  with  administration,  the  school,  and 
the  Church  ;  and  that  it  would  bring  the  Imperial  and 
Prussian  Parliaments  into  conflict  to  the  injury  of  German 
unity.  The  Emperor  has  made  only  one  reference  to 
electoral  reform  in  Prussia,  a  promise,  namely,  he  gave 
the  Diet  in  October  of  this  year,  that  the  regulations 
concerning  the  voting  should  experience  "  an  organic 
further  development,  which  should  correspond  to  the 
economic  progress,  the  spread  of  education  and  political 
understanding,  and  the  strengthening  of  the  feeling  of 
State  responsibility."  No  reform,  however,  has  yet  been 
effected  by  legislation. 


THE    NOVEMBER   STORM          317 

As  to  disarmament,  Germany's  position  is  simply 
negative,  though  it  may  be  noticed  by  anticipation  that 
she  has  recently  (1913)  expressed  her  disposition  to 
accept  the  proportion  of  ten  German  to  sixteen  English 
first-class  battleships  suggested  by  Sir  Edward  Grey  in 
1912  as  offering  the  basis  of  a  possibly  permanent 
arrangement.  At  the  time  now  dealt  with,  however, 
Chancellor  von  Biilow  asserted  that  no  proposal  that 
could  serve  as  a  basis  had  ever  been  submitted  to  his 
Government,  and  added  that  even  if  such  a  proposal 
were  made  it  was  doubtful  if  it  could  be  accepted.  It 
was  not  merely  the  number  of  ships,  he  said,  that  was 
involved ;  there  were  a  host  of  technical  questions — 
standards,  criteria  of  all  sorts,  which  could  not  be 
expressed  in  figures,  economic  progress  abroad  and  the 
possible  effect  of  new  scientific  inventions — to  be  con- 
sidered. Lastly  there  were  the  navy  laws,  which  the 
Government  was  pledged  to  carry  out.  As  for  military 
disarmament,  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers  regard  it 
as  impossible,  considering  the  unfavourable  strategic 
situation  of  Germany  in  the  midst  of  Europe,  with 
exposed  frontiers  on  every  side. 

This  year  the  Emperor  and  his  family  took  up  their 
quarters  for  the  first  time  in  their  new  Corfu  spring 
residence  "  Achilleion."  They  were  met  by  the  Royal 
Family  of  Greece,  who  showed  them  over  the  Castle,  and 
in  the  evening  were  welcomed  by  the  mayor  of  Corfu, 
who,  in  a  flight  of  metaphor,  said  his  people  desired 
to  wreathe  the  Emperor's  "Olympic  brow"  with  a 
crown  of  olive.  That  the  Emperor  did  not  pass  his 
days  wholly  in  admiring  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  was 
shown  by  the  fact  that  a  few  days  after  his  arrival  he 
delivered  a  lecture  in  the  Castle  on  "  Nelson  and  the 
Battle  of  Trafalgar,"  being  prompted  thereto  by  a  book 
on  the  subject  by  Captain  Mark  Kerr,  of  H.M.S.  Implacable. 
The  Emperor  illustrated  his  lecture  with  sketches  drawn 


318  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

by  himself   of   the  positions  of  the  united  French   and 
Spanish  fleets  during  the  battle. 

Almost  every  year  sees  some  specialty  produced  at  the 
Royal  Opera  in  Berlin.  This  year  it  was  Meyerbeer's 
"  Les  Huguenots,"  performed  in  the  presence  of  the 
French  Ambassador  in  Berlin,  Monsieur  Jules  Cambon, 
and  two  directors  of  the  Paris  Opera.  The  Emperor 
told  Monsieur  Messager,  one  of  the  latter,  that  he  had 
taken  an  infinity  of  trouble  to  get  the  right  character, 
colour,  and  movement  of  the  period  of  the  opera,  and 
explained  his  interest  in  the  work  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
lost  two  of  his  ancestors,  Admiral  Coligny  and  the  Prince 
of  Orange,  in  the  historic  massacre.  This  opera,  with 
Verdi's  "  Aida,"  are  still,  as  given  at  the  Royal  Opera,  the 
favourite  operas  of  the  Berlin  public. 

Americans,  like  all  other  people,  regard  the  Emperor 
with  friendly  feelings,  but  for  a  time  this  year  their 
respect  for  him  suffered  some  diminution  owing  to 
what  was  known  as  the  Tower- Hill  affair.  When  the 
American  Ambassador  in  Berlin,  Mr.  Charlemagne 
Tower,  resigned  his  post  in  1908,  the  Washington 
authorities  found  difficulty  in  choosing  a  suitable 
successor.  Mr.  Tower  was  a  wealthy  man,  who  by 
his  personal  qualities,  aided  by  a  talented  wife,  whom 
the  Emperor  once  described  as  "  the  Moltke  of  society," 
and  by  frequent  entertainments  in  one  of  the  finest 
houses  of  the  fashionable  Tiergarten  quarter,  had  fully 
satisfied  the  Emperor  of  his  fitness  to  represent  a  great 
nation  at  the  Court  of  a  great  Empire.  The  Emperor 
has  a  high  opinion  of  his  country,  and,  in  small  things 
as  in  great,  will  not  have  it  treated  as  a  quantite 
negligeable :  consequently  a  millionaire  was  not  too 
good  for  Berlin.  The  impression  produced  by  Mr. 
Tower  on  Republican  America  was  not  quite  the  same. 
When  Ambassador  in  St.  Petersburg,  Mr.  Tower  had 
invented  a  Court  uniform  for  himself  and  staff  of  a 


THE    NOVEMBER    STORM          319 

highly  ornate,  not  to  say  fantastic,  kind,  and  when  in 
Berlin  was  thought  to  take  too  little  trouble  to  win 
popularity  among  his  American  fellow-colonists.  This 
non-republican  attitude,  as  it  seemed  to  be,  met  with  a 
good  deal  of  adverse  criticism  in  America,  and  the 
Washington  authorities,  for  that  or  for  some  other 
reason,  considered  it  advisable  to  choose  as  Mr.  Tower's 
successor  a  man  of  another  type.  Their  choice  fell  on 
Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill,  American  Minister  at  Berne,  a 
former  President  of  Rochester  University,  the  author  of 
a  standard  work  on  the  History  of  Diplomacy,  and  as 
renowned  for  the  amiability  of  his  character  as  for  his 
academic  attainments.  A  further  reason  for  choosing 
him  was  that  he  had  been  attached  to  the  service  of  the 
Emperor's  brother,  Prince  Henry,  during  the  latter's  visit 
to  the  United  States  some  years  before.  Dr.  Hill  spoke 
German  excellently,  was  able  and  distinguished,  and,  if 
not  a  man  of  great  means,  was  sufficiently  well-to-do 
to  represent  his  country  becomingly  at  the  Court  of 
Berlin.  His  selection  was  in  due  course  communicated 
for  agrement  to  the  German  Foreign  Office,  and  by  it, 
also  in  due  course,  transmitted  to  the  Emperor.  The 
Emperor  without  more  ado  signed  the  agrement  and 
the  arrival  of  Dr.  Hill  in  Berlin  was  daily  expected. 

Just  at  this  time,  however,  Mr.  Tower  gave  a  farewell 
dinner  to  the  Emperor,  and  invited  to  it  specially  from 
Rome  the  American  Ambassador  to  Italy,  Mr.  Griscom. 
Mr.  Griscom  was  accompanied  by  his  clever  and 
attractive  wife.  The  dinner-party  assembled,  and  Mr. 
Griscom  and  his  wife  were  placed  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  the  Emperor.  Before  dinner  was 
over  it  was  evident  that  the  Griscoms  had  made  a 
most  favourable  impression  on  the  imperial  guest. 
Accordingly,  so  the  story  goes,  when  towards  the  end  of 
dinner  the  Emperor,  in  his  impulsive  way,  exclaimed, 
"Now,  why  didn't  America  send  me  the  Griscoms 


320          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

instead  of  the  Hills?"  or  words  to  that  effect,  the 
company  was  not  completely  taken  by  surprise.  When, 
however,  the  Emperor  went  on  to  suggest  to  his  host 
to  telegraph  to  President  Roosevelt  to  make  the  change, 
it  became  evident  that  an  international  incident  of 
exceptional  delicacy  had  been  created.  Mr.  Tower, 
who  would  perhaps  have  acted  with  better  judgment 
had  he  declined  to  adopt  the  Emperor's  suggestion, 
cabled  to  President  Roosevelt,  and  at  the  same  Mr. 
Griscom  wrote  to  him  privately.  Before  Mr.  Griscom's 
letter  arrived,  perhaps  before  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  in 
possession  of  Mr.  Tower's  telegram,  the  words  of  the 
Emperor  had  become  known  in  Berlin,  were  cabled 
to  the  American  Press,  and  much  indignation  at  the 
Emperor's  conduct  was  aroused  in  all  parts  of  America. 
The  two  Governments,  as  well  as  Dr.  Hill,  were  placed 
in  a  position  of  great  embarrassment.  In  view  of  the 
state  of  public  opinion  in  America,  and  in  view  also 
of  the  American  Government's  engagement  vis  a  vis 
Dr.  Hill,  the  Washington  authorities  could  not  with- 
draw a  nominee  who  had  been  already  signalled  to  it 
from  Germany  as  persona  grata.  The  only  way  possible 
out  of  the  difficulty  was  to  employ  the  machinery  of 
the  official  dementi,  and  this  was  accordingly  done. 
It  was  denied  by  the  Foreign  Office  that  the  Emperor 
had  expressed  dissatisfaction  with  Dr.  Hill's  appointment, 
and  the  incident  closed  with  the  carrying  out  of  the 
original  arrangements  and  the  arrival  of  Dr.  Hill  in 
Berlin.  Subsequent  events  proved  that  had  the  Emperor 
known  Dr.  Hill  personally  he  would  never  have  thought 
of  expressing  dissatisfaction  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  him 
as  Ambassador  at  his  Court,  for  Dr.  Hill,  during  the  two 
years  of  his  stay,  fully  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  the 
Washington  Government's  choice,  and  before  he  left 
his  post  had  earned  the  Emperor's  complete  respect, 
it  not  his  cordial  friendship. 


XV 

AFTER  THE  STORM 
1909-1913 

NEXT  year,  1909,  was  the  year  of  the  famous 
finance  reform  measure  which,  though  finally 
carried  through,  led  to  the  resignation  of 
Chancellor  von  Bulow.  It  had  been  obvious  for 
some  years  that  a  reorganization  of  the  imperial  system 
of  finance  with  a  view  to  meeting  the  growing  expenses 
of  the  Empire,  and  in  especial  those  of  the  army  and 
navy,  was  necessary  if  imperial  bankruptcy  was  to  be 
avoided.  The  practice  of  taking  what  were  known  as 
matricular  contributions  from  the  separate  States  to  make 
up  for  deficits  in  the  imperial  budgets,  and  of  burdening 
posterity  by  State  loans,  had  one  day  to  cease.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  the  National  Debt  was  884 
million  marks  (^44,200,000),  and  in  1908  over  4,000 
million  marks  (.£200,000,000).  A  year  before  this  Prince 
Biilow  had  made  his  first  proposals  for  reform,  including 
new  taxes  on  beer,  wine,  tobacco,  and  succession  duties 
on  property. 

All  parties  in  Parliament,  except  of  course  the  Social 
Democrats,  admitted  that  fresh  imposts  were  inevitable, 
but,  very  naturally,  no  party  was  willing  to  bear  them. 
The  Conservatives  would  not  hear  of  an  inheritance 
tax  and  the  Liberals  would  not  hear  of  duties  on 
popular  consumption.  The  result  was  to  make  the 
Centrum  masters  of  the  political  field  and  place  the 
Y  321 


322  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Conservative-Liberal  "  bloc "  at  its  mercy.  After  long 
discussion,  the  Government  proposals  were  put  to  the 
vote  on  June  24th,  and  as  the  Centrum  threw  in  its  lot 
with  the  Conservatives,  the  proposals  were  rejected  by 
195  votes  to  187.  Prince  Biilow  thereupon  went  to 
Kiel  and  tendered  his  resignation  to  the  Emperor,  but  at 
the  latter's  urgent  request  consented  to  remain  in  office 
until  financial  reform  in  one  shape  or  another  had  been 
effected.  This  result  was  attained  a  month  later,  after 
much  compromising  and  discussion.  The  Chancellor 
renewed  his  request  for  retirement,  and  the  Emperor 
agreed.  On  the  same  day,  July  I4th,  that  the  resignation 
took  effect,  it  was  officially  announced  that  Herr  von 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  who  had  hitherto  been  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  was  appointed  to  succeed  Prince  von 
Biilow  as  Imperial  Chancellor. 

An  impression  prevails  widely  in  Germany  that  Prince 
Billow's  retirement  was  due  to  the  loss  of  the  Emperor's 
favour  owing  to  the  Prince's  attitude  towards  the 
monarch  during  the  "  November  storm."  Prince  Biilow, 
very  properly,  has  always  refused  to  say  anything  about 
his  relations  with  his  royal  master,  but  a  lengthy  state- 
ment he  made  to  a  newspaper  correspondent  referring 
his  resignation  to  the  conduct  of  the  Conservatives,  and 
a  letter  from  the  Emperor  gratefully  thanking  the  Prince 
in  the  warmest  terms  for  his  "long  and  intimate  co- 
operation," and  conferring  upon  him  at  the  same  time 
the  highest  Order  in  the  Empire,  that  of  the  Black 
Eagle,  should  be  sufficient  evidence  to  disprove  the  sup- 
position. It  is  more  probable  that  the  Prince  was  weary 
of  the  cares  of  office  and  of  the  strife  of  party.  Moreover, 
he  had,  in  the  state  of  his  health,  a  strong  private  reason 
for  retirement.  Four  years  before,  on  April  5,  1906,  he 
had  fallen  unconscious  from  his  seat  on  the  ministerial 
bench  during  the  proceedings  in  the  Reichstag,  and 
although  he  was  back  again  in  Parliament,  perfectly 


AFTER   THE    STORM  323 

recovered,  in  the  following  November,  the  attack  was  an 
experience  which  warned  him  against  too  great  a  pro- 
longation of  such  heavy  work  and  responsibility  as  the 
Chancellorship  entails. 

The  retirement  of  Prince  Biilow  meant  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  most  notable  figure  in  German  political 
life  since  the  beginning  of  the  century.  In  ability,  wit, 
and  those  graces  of  a  refined  and  richly  cultivated  mind 
which  have  so  often  distinguished  great  English  states- 
men, he  was  a  head  and  shoulders  above  any  of  his 
fellow-countrymen  ;  while  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  able 
to  maintain  his  position  for  almost  twelve  years  (he  had 
been,  as  Foreign  Secretary  for  over  two  years,  the 
Emperor's  most  trusted  counsellor  and  the  real  executive 
in  foreign  policy)  is  a  convincing  proof  of  his  tact  and 
diplomatic  talent,  as  well  as  of  his  statesmanship. 

His  successor,  the  present  Chancellor,  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg,  is  a  man  of  another  and  very  different 
type.  He  incorporates  the  spirit  of  Prussian  patriotism 
of  the  most  orthodox  kind  in  its  worthiest  and  best 
manifestations,  but  as  yet  he  has  given  no  proofs  of 
possessing  the  breadth  of  view,  the  oratorical  talent, 
or  the  urbanity  which  distinguished  his  predecessor. 
Prince  von  Billow's  career  as  a  German  diplomatist  in 
foreign  capitals  made  him  an  acute  and  highly  polished 
man  of  the  world.  The  present  Chancellor  has  spent  all 
his  life  within  the  comparatively  narrow  confines  of 
Prussian  administrative  service.  It  is,  of  course,  too 
soon  to  pass  final  judgment  on  him  as  German  Prime 
Minister. 

The  visit  of  King  Edward  VII  and  Queen  Alexandra  to 
Berlin  in  February,  1909,  disposed  finally  of  the  idea, 
which  had  prevailed  in  Germany  as  well  as  abroad  for  two 
or  three  years,  that  England  was  pursuing  a  policy  aiming 
to  bring  about  the  "  isolation "  of  Germany  in  world- 
politics.  The  visit  was  an  official  one,  paid,  of  course, 


324  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

chiefly  to  the  Emperor  ;  but  its  most  remarkable  feature, 
politics  apart,  was  the  friendly  relations  which  King 
Edward  established  with  the  Berlin  City  Fathers  at  a 
reception  in  the  Town  Hall.  It  was  not  that  he  said 
anything  out  of  the  way  to  the  assembled  burghers  ;  but 
his  simple  manner,  genial  remarks,  and  perhaps  especially 
the  sympathetic  way  in  which  he  handled  the  loving-cup 
offered  by  his  hosts,  made  an  instantaneous  and  strong 
impression. 

The  controversy  that  raged  round  the  so-called 
"  Flora  Bust "  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  gaiety  of 
nations  towards  the  close  of  this  year.  The  bust,  an 
undraped  wax  figure,  reproducing  the  features  of 
Leonardo  da  Vinci's  famous  "  La  Joconde,"  was  bought 
by  Dr.  Wilhelm  Bode,  Director  of  the  Kaiser  Fried- 
rich  Museum  in  Berlin,  for  ^8,000  from  a  London  dealer 
as  an  authentic  work  of  the  celebrated  Italian  painter, 
dating  from  about  the  year  1500.  It  was  brought  with  a 
great  flourish  of  trumpets  to  Berlin,  and  a  chorus  of  self- 
congratulation  was  raised  in  Germany  on  the  successful 
carrying  off  of  such  a  prize  from  England.  The 
harmony,  however,  was  rudely  disturbed  by  the  publica- 
tion of  a  letter  from  Mr.  F.  C.  Cooksey,  art  critic  of  the 
Times,  stating  that  the  bust  was  not  by  da  Vinci  at  all, 
but  was  in  reality  the  work  of  Mr.  R.  C.  Lucas,  an  artist 
of  some  note  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  and  that  it  had  for 
long  occupied  a  pedestal  in  Lucas's  suburban  garden. 

The  Emperor,  whose  curiosity  as  well  as  patriotism 
was  aroused,  spent  half  an  hour  on  November  nth 
discussing  the  bust  with  Dr.  Bode  and  examining  an 
album  containing  photographs  of  the  works  of  Lucas. 
At  the  close  of  his  inspection  the  Emperor  expressed 
great  delight  at  the  acquisition,  as  to  the  genuineness  of 
which  he  declared  he  "  had  not  the  slightest  doubt," 
and  said  he  did  not  regard  the  price  paid  as  extremely 
high.  Unfortunately  for  the  Emperor's  conviction,  a 


AFTER    THE    STORM  325 

letter  now  appeared  in  the  Times  from  Mr.  A.  C. 
Lucas,  a  son  of  R.  C.  Lucas,  who  said  he  recollected  the 
making  of  the  bust,  and  suggested  that  there  might  be 
found  in  its  interior  a  piece  of  cloth,  probably  a  part  of 
an  old  waistcoat  of  his  father's,  which  had  been  used  as 
a  sort  of  filling.  In  the  presence  of  such  a  statement 
there  was  only  one  thing  left  to  be  done  :  to  examine 
the  interior  of  the  bust.  First  of  all  it  was  subjected  to 
the  Roentgen  rays,  the  result  being  to  show  that  the 
interior  was  not  homogeneous.  A  few  days  after,  there 
was  a  great  gathering  of  experts  at  the  Museum,  a  hole 
was  cut  in  the  wax  at  the  back  of  the  bust,  a  bent  wire 
was  introduced,  and  the  search  for  the  famous  piece 
of  waistcoat  began.  It  was  a  dramatic  moment  as 
Professor  Latghen  with  his  wire  explored  the  interior  of 
the  bust,  and  the  tension  reached  its  highest  point  when 
the  Professor,  drawing  from  the  bust  what  was  evidently 
a  piece  of  cloth,  exclaimed,  "  Hier  ist  die  Veste!"  On 
being  further  withdrawn  the  substance  proved  to  be 
about  two  square  inches  of  a  grey,  canvas-like  material, 
feeling  soft  and  velvety  to  the  touch.  It  was  a  disagree- 
able discovery  for  the  Germans,  but  it  was  got  over  by 
the  suggestion  that  the  original  bust  had  been  entrusted 
to  Lucas  for  repair,  and  that  in  this  way  the  waistcoat 
had  got  into  it.  The  "  poor  English  newspapers,"  Dr. 
Bode  said,  referring  to  the  sarcastic  comments  on  the 
discovery  from  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  "  had  had, 
without  any  acquaintance  with  our  bust  or  with  the 
work  of  its  alleged  forger,  to  give  this  particular  form  of 
expression  to  their  ill-humour  at  the  sale."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  bust,  whoever  made  it,  is  a  lovely  work  of  art, 
as  every  one  who  has  seen  it  readily  admits. 

The  Emperor's  friendship  with  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
which  was  now  to  be  confirmed  by  personal  acquaintance, 
throws  a  side  light  on  his  own  character,  and  testifies  to 
his  desire  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  rulers  of  other 


326  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

countries — another  illustration,  by  the  way,  of  his  con- 
sistency, since  he  laid  down  the  policy  of  cultivating 
friendly  relations  with  foreign  rulers  at  the  very  com- 
mencement of  his  reign.  Probably  many  letters  in  the 
large  characteristic  handwriting  of  both  men  have  passed 
between  them,  and  there  probably  always  existed  a  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  wielder  of  the  mailed  fist  to  make  the 
personal  acquaintance  of  the  advocate  of  the  big  stick. 
The  meeting  occurred  in  May,  1910,  after  Mr.  Roosevelt 
had  shot  wild  beasts  in  Africa,  visited  Egypt,  London, 
Vienna,  Rome,  and  other  continental  cities,  with  a  cohort 
of  newspaper  correspondents,  and  caused  by  his  speeches 
political,  if  fortunately  harmless,  disturbance  almost  every- 
where he  went.  When  in  Berlin  he  was  to  have  lodged 
at  the  Emperor's  palace  ;  but  the  Emperor's  hospitable 
intent  was  frustrated  by  the  death  of  King  Edward  VII, 
which  prevented  all  entertainment  in  the  home  of  his 
German  nephew. 

The  Roosevelt  party,  consisting  of  the  ex-President, 
Mrs.  Roosevelt,  and  Miss  Ethel  Roosevelt,  arrived  in 
Berlin  on  May  nth  from  Stockholm,  and  at  noon  the 
same  day  were  taken  by  royal  train  to  Potsdam.  At 
the  New  Palace  the  party  were  heartily  greeted  by  the 
Emperor,  whom  they  found  standing  on  the  steps  waiting 
to  receive  them.  After  shaking  hands  the  Emperor  led 
his  guests  into  a  small  reception-room,  where  they  were 
introduced  to  the  Empress,  the  Crown  Prince  and  Crown 
Princess,  and  other  members  of  the  imperial  family.  The 
Emperor  then  took  them  to  the  Shell  Room,  so  called 
from  its  being  inlaid  with  shells  and  rare  stones,  and  here 
were  found  some  of  the  Emperor's  high  officials,  including 
Admiral  von  Miiller,  chief  of  the  Marine  Cabinet,  and  one 
of  the  most  able  and  amiable  of  the  Emperor's  entourage, 
who  had  met  Mr.  Roosevelt  when  on  his  trip  to  America 
with  Prince  Henry  several  years  before.  Luncheon 
followed  at  six  small  tables  in  the  Jasper  Gallery,  the 


AFTER   THE    STORM  327 

Emperor  taking  his  seat  between  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  the 
Crown  Princess,  while  the  Empress  had  Mr.  Roosevelt  on 
her  left  and  her  eldest  son,  the  Crown  Prince,  on  her 
right.  Princess  Victoria  Louise,  the  Emperor's  only 
daughter,  occupied  a  seat  on  Mr.  Roosevelt's  left.  After 
lunch  was  over  the  guests  went  back  to  the  Shell  Room, 
and  here  the  Emperor,  taking  Mr.  Roosevelt  apart,  began 
a  conversation  so  long  and  animated  that  the  shades  of 
evening  began  to  fall  before  it  ended.  The  Roosevelts 
did  not  return  to  Berlin  by  train,  but  were  first  driven  by 
the  Emperor  to  inspect  Sans  Souci,  and  were  afterwards 
whirled  back  to  Berlin  in  the  yellow  imperial  motors. 

Only  two  other  incidents  of  the  visit  need  be  men- 
tioned. One  of  them  was  a  lecture  on  "The  World 
Movement,"  delivered  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  very  husky 
tones  (for  he  was  suffering  badly  from  hoarseness)  at 
Berlin  University,  in  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  and 
Empress.  The  other  was  a  parade  of  12,000  troops, 
arranged  by  the  Emperor  at  Doeberitz,  the  great  military 
exercise  camp  near  Potsdam,  which  Mr.  Roosevelt,  clad 
in  a  khaki  coat  and  breeches,  and  wearing  brown  leather 
gaiters  and  black  slouch  hat,  observed  from  horseback 
beside  the  Emperor.  As  the  troops  went  by  at  the  close 
of  the  review  the  Emperor  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  saluted  in 
military  fashion  simultaneously. 

Immediately  after  the  visit  of  the  Roosevelts,  the 
Emperor  was  called  to  England  to  attend  the  funeral  of 
King  Edward  VII.  The  imperial  yacht  Hohenzollern, 
with  the  Emperor  on  board,  arrived  in  England  on 
May  igth.  Next  day  the  Emperor  travelled  to  Victoria 
terminus,  where  he  was  received  and  warmly  embraced 
by  King  George.  They  proceeded  to  Buckingham  Palace, 
where  the  Emperor's  first  call  was  made  on  the  widowed 
Queen  Alexandra.  On  the  2ist  took  place  the  funeral  of 
King  Edward,  the  procession  to  Westminster  Abbey, 
where  the  service  was  held,  being  headed  by  King  George 


328  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

with  the  Emperor  on  his  right  and  the  Duke  of  Connaught 
on  his  left.  Both  the  Emperor  and  the  Duke  were 
dressed  in  Field  -  Marshal's  uniform  and  carried  the 
batons  of  their  rank.  The  countenance  of  the  Emperor 
is  described  by  a  chronicler  of  the  time  (and  the  Times) 
as  wearing  "  an  expression  grave  even  to  severity." 

The  procession  moved  slowly  on  to  the  famous  Abbey, 
the  Emperor  riding  a  grey  horse,  saluting  at  intervals  as 
he  rode  along.  On  arrival  at  the  Abbey  an  incident 
occurred.  As  soon  as  Queen  Alexandra's  carriage  arrived 
and  drew  up,  the  Emperor,  according  to  the  accounts  of 
eyewitnesses,  ran  to  the  door  of  the  carriage  with  so  much 
alacrity  that  he  had  reached  it  before  the  royal  servants, 
and  when  it  appeared  that  her  Majesty  was  not  to  alight 
from  that  side  of  the  carriage,  the  Emperor  motioned  the 
lacqueys  round  to  the  other  door,  and  was  there  before 
them  to  assist  her  Majesty.  This  he  did,  after  himself 
opening  the  door.  The  Emperor  remained  in  England 
only  a  very  few  days  after  the  funeral,  seeing  old  friends, 
among  them  Lord  Kitchener. 

As  of  interest  to  both  Englishmen  and  Germans  may 
be  mentioned  the  tour  through  India  undertaken  by  the 
Crown  Prince  in  November.  Steele  once  happily  said  of 
a  Lady  Hastings  that  "  to  love  her  was  a  liberal  educa- 
tion "  ;  to  make  a  tour  through  India,  it  might  similarly 
be  said,  is  an  education  in  the  extent  and  character  of 
British  imperial  power  and  administration.  The  Crown 
Prince  naturally  devoted  a  goodly  share  of  his  time  to  the 
delights  of  sport,  including  tiger-shooting  and  pig-sticking, 
but  he  must  also  have  learned  much  of  England's  fine 
imperial  spirit  from  his  intercourse  with  an  official  hier- 
archy as  honest  and  conscientious  as  that  of  his  own 
country.  The  Crown  Prince,  on  his  return  home,  pub- 
lished a  volume  of  hunting  reminiscences  which  does  no 
small  credit  to  him  as  an  author. 

The    Emperor's    "  shining   armour "    political   remark 


AFTER   THE    STORM  329 

dates  from  this  period.  He  was  on  a  visit  to  his  Triplice 
ally,  Kaiser  Franz  Josef,  in  September,  1910,  and  made 
a  speech  at  the  Vienna  Town  Hall  on  the  2ist  which 
contained  a  reference  to  the  loyal  conduct  he  claimed 
Germany  had  observed  when  the  action  of  Austria- 
Hungary  in  annexing  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  despite 
the  wording  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  had  raised  an  outcry 
in  other  countries,  and  in  particular  strained  Austrian 
relations  with  Russia.  After  thanking  his  audience  for 
the  personal  reception  given  him,  he  continued  :  "  On  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  to  me  I  read  in  your  resolution 
the  agreement  of  the  city  of  Vienna  with  the  action  of 
an  ally  in  taking  his  stand  in  shining  armour  at  a  grave 
moment  by  the  side  of  your  most  gracious  sovereign." 
The  outcry  caused  in  the  world  by  Austria's  high-handed 
annexation,  and  especially  in  Russia,  theoretically  always 
Austria's  most  probable  enemy,  owing  to  conflicting 
interests  in  the  Balkans,  subsided,  we  know,  as  suddenly 
as  it  was  raised.  The  reason,  it  is  currently  believed,  and 
the  form  in  which  the  rays  of  the  shining  armour  acted, 
was  an  intimation  from  the  Emperor  to  the  Czar  that,  if 
necessary,  Germany  was  prepared  to  fight  for  Austria. 

Peoples  are  said  to  have  the  institutions,  and  husbands 
the  wives,  they  deserve ;  but  if  German  cities,  and  espe- 
cially Berlin,  have  the  police  they  deserve,  the  fact  speaks 
very  uncomplimentarily  for  their  inhabitants.  Foreigners 
in  Germany,  coming  from  countries  where  manners  are 
more  natural  and  obliging,  frequently  use  the  adjectives 
"brutal"  and  "stupid"  when  speaking  of  the  Prussian 
constable.  The  proceedings  of  the  Berlin  police  during 
the  Moabit  riots  in  the  capital  in  September  this  year  are 
often  quoted  as  an  example  of  their  brutality,  while,  as  to 
stupidity,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  a  stranger  in  Berlin, 
discussing  its  mounted  police,  naively  remarked  that  what 
most  struck  him  about  them  was  the  look  of  intelligence 
on  the  faces  of  the  horses.  Judgments  of  this  kind  are 


330  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

too  sweeping.  It  should  be  remembered  that  Germany 
is  surrounded  by  countries  of  which  the  riff-raff  is  at  all 
times  seeking  refuge  in  it  or  passing  through  it,  that 
polyglot  swindlers  of  every  kind,  the  most  refined  as  well 
as  the  most  commonplace,  abound,  and  that  Anarchists 
are  not  yet  an  extinct  species.  For  the  Prussian  police, 
moreover,  there  is  a  Social  Democrat  behind  every  bush. 

Possibly  to  this  condition  of  things,  and  to  the  sus- 
picion that  Social  Democratic  organizers  were  about,  was 
due  the  gallant  charge  made  by  half  a  dozen  policemen, 
with  drawn  swords  in  their  hands  and  revolvers  at  their 
belts,  on  four  inoffensive  English  and  American  jour- 
nalists during  the  Moabit  riots.  Towards  midnight  of 
September  29th  the  journalists  were  seated  in  an  open 
taximeter  cab,  in  a  brilliantly  lighted  square,  which  some 
little  time  before  had  been  swept  of  rioters — rioters  from 
the  Berlin  police  point  of  view  being  any  one,  man, 
woman,  or  child,  who  is,  with  guilty  or  innocent  intent, 
it  makes  no  difference,  in  or  near  a  theatre  of  disturbance. 
Suddenly  half  a  dozen  burly  policemen,  led  on  by  a  police 
spy,  as  he  afterwards  turned  out  to  be,  charged  the  cab 
and  laid  about  them  with  their  swords.  They  probably 
only  intended  to  use  the  flat  of  their  weapons,  but  one  of 
them  succeeded  in  slashing  deeply  the  hand  of  Reuter's 
representative,  who  was  of  the  party.  The  other  journalists 
escaped  with  contusions  and  bruises,  thanks  chiefly  to 
the  sides  of  the  cab  impeding  the  sword-play  of  the 
attackers. 

The  journalists  naturally  complained  to  their  Ambas- 
sadors, who  took  up  their  cause  with  commendable  readi- 
ness. Without  immediate  effect,  however ;  the  authorities, 
though  themselves  very  strong  on  the  point  of  duty, 
wondered  much  at  journalists  being  in  a  place  where 
duty  alone  could  have  brought  them,  and  refused  any  sort 
of  apology  or  other  satisfaction.  The  Government,  how- 
ever, eventually  expressed  its  "  regret,"  and  a  year  or  two 


AFTER   THE    STORM  331 

after,  possibly  in  the  spirit  of  conciliation  and  compen- 
sation, agreed  to  give  foreign  journalists  in  Berlin  the 
passe-partout,  or  coupe-fil,  as  it  is  known  in  France,  which 
is  one  of  the  privileges  most  valued  by  the  journalist, 
native  and  foreign,  in  Paris. 

Among  the  international  agreements  of  the  year  was  a 
commercial  one  between  Germany  and  America.  Com- 
mercial relations  between  the  two  countries  have  never 
been  quite  satisfactory  to  either,  and  if  there  is  no  tariff 
war,  occasions  of  tariff  tension,  with  consequent  disturb- 
ance of  trade,  constantly  arise.  Germany's  European 
commercial  treaties  have  secured  her  a  sufficiency  of  raw 
material  for  her  industry.  Her  chief  object  now  is  not  so 
much  perhaps  to  facilitate  imports  of  material  from  other 
countries  as  to  find  markets,  in  America  as  elsewhere,  for  her 
industry's  finished  products.  Consequently  she  strongly 
dislikes  the  high  tariff  barriers  of  the  United  States,  inaugu- 
rated by  the  Dingley  tariff  of  1897,  and  has  in  addition 
certain  grievances  against  that  country  regarding  customs 
administration  in  respect  of  appraisement,  invoices,  and 
the  like.  Her  commercial  connexion  with  America  dates 
from  the  treaty  of  "  friendship  and  commerce  "  made  by 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  having  the  most-favoured-nation 
treatment  as  its  basis ;  a  regular  treaty  of  the  same  kind 
between  Prussia  and  America  was  entered  into  in  1828  ; 
and  since  then  commercial  relations  have  been  regulated 
provisionally  by  a  series  of  short-term  agreements  which, 
however,  America  claims,  do  not  confer  on  Germany 
unrestricted  right  to  most-favoured-nation  treatment.  By 
the  agreement  now  in  force,  concluded  this  year  (1910), 
America  and  Germany  grant  each  other  the  benefit  of 
their  minimum  duties. 

Since  the  "  November  storm  "  the  Emperor  had  made 
no  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Right,  nor 
given  any  indication  of  a  desire  to  exercise  the 
"  personal  regiment "  which  is  the  natural  corollary  to 


332  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

it.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  doctrine,  viewed  from 
the  English  standpoint,  is  a  species  of  mental  malady 
to  which  Hohenzollern  monarchs  are  hereditarily 
subject.  It  recurs  intermittently  and  particularly  when- 
ever a  Hohenzollern  monarch  speaks  in  Koenigsberg,  the 
Scone  of  Prussia,  where  Prussian  Kings  are  crowned. 
When  at  Koenigsberg  this  year  the  Emperor  suffered 
from  a  return  of  the  royal  idee  fixe.  "  Here  my 
grandfather,"  he  said,  "placed,  by  his  own  right, 
the  crown  of  the  Kings  of  Prussia  on  his  head, 
once  again  laying  stress  upon  the  fact  that  it  was 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  Grace  of  God  alone, 
not  by  Parliament,  by  meetings  of  the  people,  or 
by  popular  decisions  ;  and  that  he  considered  himself 
the  chosen  instrument  of  Heaven  and  as  such  performed 
his  duties  as  regent  and  as  ruler."  Speaking  of  himself 
on  the  occasion  he  said  :  "  Considering  myself  as  an 
Instrument  of  the  Lord,  without  being  misled  by  the 
views  and  opinions  of  the  day,  I  go  my  way,  which  is 
devoted  solely  and  alone  to  the  prosperity  and  peaceful 
development  of  our  Fatherland."  The  Emperor,  by 
the  way,  on  this  occasion  made  what  sounds  like  an 
indirect  reference  to  the  Suffragette  craze.  "What  shall 
our  women,"  he  asked,  after  mentioning  the  pattern 
Queen  of  Prussia,  Queen  Louise,  "learn  from  the 
Queen  ?  They  must  learn  that  the  principal  task  of 
the  German  woman  does  not  lie  in  attending 
public  meetings  and  belonging  to  societies,  in  the 
attainment  of  supposed  rights  in  which  women  can 
emulate  men,  but  in  the  quiet  work  of  the  home  and 
in  the  family."  The  Emperor's  reference  to  his  divine 
appointment  did  not  pass  without  a  good  deal  of  popular 
criticism  in  Germany,  but  nearly  all  Germans  were  at 
one  with  the  Emperor  in  his  view  of  the  proper  sphere 
for  womanly  activities. 

The  Emperor's  domestic  life  for  the  last  two  or  three 


AFTER   THE   STORM  333 

years,  including  the  early  months  of  the  present  year, 
have  passed  without  special  cause  of  interest  or  excite- 
ment, if  we  except  the  visit  he  and  the  Empress  made 
to  London  in  May,  1911,  to  be  present  at  the  unveiling 
of  Queen  Victoria's  statue,  and  the  announcement  he 
was  able  to  make  a  few  months  ago  that  his  only 
daughter,  Princess  Victoria  Louise,  had  become  engaged 
to  Prince  Ernest  August,  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the 
still  persisting  claimant  to  the  Kingdom  of  Hannover, 
absorbed  by  Prussia  in  1866.  The  visit  to  London 
lasted  only  five  days  and  produced  no  incident  particu- 
larly worthy  of  record.  The  engagement  of  Princess 
Victoria  Louise,  while  generally  believed  to  be  a  love- 
match,  possesses  also  political  significance  for  Germany, 
not  indeed  as  putting  an  end  to  the  claim  of  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  but  as  practically  effecting  a  reconciliation 
between  the  Hohenzollerns  and  Guelphs.  The  young 
Duke  of  Brunswick  had  already  implicitly  renounced  his 
claim  to  Hannover  by  entering  the  German  army  and 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Emperor  as  War 
Lord,  so  that,  when  his  father  dies,  the  Guelph  claim 
to  Hannover  will  die  with  him. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  Government's 
abandonment  of  its  design  to  amend  the  Prussian 
franchise  system  in  1910,  its  submissive  attitude  towards 
the  Pope's  Borromeo  Encyclical  in  1911,  the  rapid  rise 
in  food  prices  which  marked  both  years,  or  finally,  the 
Emperor's  failure  to  secure  a  slice  of  Morocco  for 
Germany  had  most  antagonizing  effect  on  German 
popular  feeling ;  but  whatever  the  cause,  the  general 
elections  of  January,  1912,  proved  a  tremendous  Socialist 
victory,  which  must  have  been,  and  still  remains,  gall 
and  wormwood  to  the  Emperor.  Notwithstanding 
official  efforts,  over  one-third  of  the  votes  polled  at  the 
first  ballots  went  for  Social  Democratic  candidates. 
The  number  of  seats  thus  obtained  was  64,  and  this 


334  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

number,  after  the  second  ballots,  rose  to  no,  thus 
making  the  Socialist  party  numerically  the  strongest 
in  the  Reichstag.  Up  to  the  present,  however,  Herr 
Bebel  and  his  cohorts  appear  to  be  happy  in  possessing 
power  rather  than  in  using  it. 

Before  completing  the  Emperor's  domestic  chronicle 
of  more  recent  years,  a  few  lines  may  be  devoted  to 
the  role  in  which  he  has  last  appeared  before  the  public — 
that  of  farmer.  On  February  12,  1913,  he  attended 
a  meeting  of  the  German  Agricultural  Council  in  Berlin, 
and  with  only  a  few  statistical  notes  to  help  him  nar- 
rated in  lively  and  amusing  fashion  his  experiences 
as  owner  of  a  farm,  the  management  of  which  he  has 
been  personally  supervising  since  1898.  The  farm  is 
part  of  the  Cadinen  Estate,  bequeathed  to  him  by  an 
admirer  and  universally  known  for  the  majolica  ware 
made  out  of  the  clay  found  on  the  property.  The 
Emperor  was  able  to  show  that  he  had  achieved 
remarkable  success  with  his  farm,  and  particularly  with 
a  fine  species  of  bull,  Bos  indicus  major,  he  maintained 
on  it.  A  year  or  two  before,  at  a  similar  meeting, 
when  speaking  of  the  same  breed  of  bull,  he  caused 
much  hilarity  among  the  military  portion  of  his 
audience  by  jokingly  remarking  that  it  had  "  nothing 
to  do  with  the  General  Staff."  On  the  present  occasion 
he  also  caused  laughter  by  recounting  how  he  had 
"  fired,"  to  use  an  American  expression  exactly  equivalent 
to  the  German  word  employed  by  the  Emperor,  a 
tenant  who  "  wasn't  any  use."  The  Emperor,  however, 
would,  as  it  turned  out,  have  done  better  by  not 
mentioning  the  incident,  for  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Leipzig  a  few  days  subsequently  quashed  the  Emperor's 
order  of  ejectment  on  the  tenant  and  condemned  him 
to  pay  all  the  costs  in  the  case.  The  role  of  farmer, 
it  may  be  added,  is  one  which,  had  he  been  born  a 
country  gentleman  like  Bismarck,  the  Emperor  would 


AFTER   THE   STORM  335 

have  filled  with  complete  success.  But  in  what  role 
would  he  not  have  done  well  ? 

Foreign  politics  everywhere  for  the  last  three  or  four 
years  have  been  full  of  incident,  outcry,  and  bloodshed. 
The  state  of  things,  indeed,  prevailing  in  the  world  for 
some  time  past  is  extraordinary.  A  visitant  from  another 
planet  would  imagine  that  normal  peace  and  abnormal 
war  had  changed  places,  and  that  civilized  mankind  now 
regard  peace  as  an  interlude  of  war,  not  war  as  an  inter- 
lude of  peace.  He  would  be  wrong,  of  course,  but  the 
race  in  armament,  which  threatens  to  leave  the  nations 
taking  part  in  it  financially  breathless  and  exhausted, 
might  easily  lead  him  astray.  On  some  of  the  situations 
with  which  these  politics  are  concerned  we  may  briefly 
touch. 

For  the  last  three  or  four  years  the  dominant  note  in 
the  music  of  what  is  called  the  European  Concert,  taking 
Europe  for  the  moment  to  include  Great  Britain,  has 
been  the  state  of  Anglo-German  relations.  There  have 
been  times,  as  has  been  seen,  when  public  feeling  in 
both  England  and  Germany  was  strongly  antagonized, 
but  all  through  the  period  there  has  been  evident  a 
desire  on  the  part  of  both  Governments  to  adopt  a 
mutually  conciliatory  attitude,  and  if  the  war  in  the 
Balkans  does  not  lead  to  a  general  international  con- 
flagration, which  at  present  appears  improbable,  the  two 
countries  may  arrive  at  a  permanent  understanding. 
There  was,  and  not  so  very  long  ago,  a  similar  state  of 
tension,  prolonged  for  many  years,  between  England 
and  France.  That  tension  not  only  ceased,  but  was 
converted  into  political  friendship  by  the  Anglo-French 
Agreement  of  1904.  Parallel  with  this  tension  between 
England  and  France  was  the  tension  between  England 
and  Russia,  owing  to  the  latter's  advance  towards 
England's  Indian  possessions.  The  latter  state  of  things 
ended  with  the  Anglo-Russian  Agreement  of  1907,  and 


336  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

it  should  engender  satisfaction  and  hope,  therefore,  to 
those  who  now  apprehend  a  war  between  England  and 
Germany  to  note  thai^  neither  of  the  tensions  referred  to, 
though  both  were  long  and  bitter,  developed  into  war. 

The  tension  between  England  and  Germany  of  late 
years  has  been  tightened  rather  than  relaxed  by  minis- 
terial speeches  as  well  as  by  newspaper  polemics  in  both 
countries.  One  of  the  most  disturbing  of  the  former 
was  the  speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  at  the 
Mansion  House  on  July  21,  1911.  Doubtless  with  the 
approval  of  the  Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Asquith,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  said  :  "  I  believe  it  is  essential,  in  the  highest 
interest  not  merely  of  this  country,  but  of  the  world, 
that  Britain  should  at  all  hazards  maintain  her  place  and 
her  prestige  amongst  the  Great  Powers  of  the  world. 
Her  potent  influence  has  many  a  time  been  in  the  past, 
and  may  yet  be  in  the  future,  invaluable  to  the  cause 
of  human  liberty.  It  has  more  than  once  in  the  past 
redeemed  continental  nations,  which  are  sometimes  too 
apt  to  forget  that  service,  from  overwhelming  disasters 
and  even  from  national  extinction.  I  would  make  great 
sacrifices  to  preserve  peace.  I  conceive  that  nothing 
would  justify  a  disturbance  of  international  goodwill 
except  questions  of  the  gravest  national  moment.  But 
if  a  situation  were  to  be  forced  upon  us  in  which  peace 
could  only  be  preserved  by  the  surrender  of  the  great 
and  beneficent  position  Britain  has  won  by  centuries  of 
heroism  and  achievement,  by  allowing  Britain  to  be 
treated,  where  her  interests  are  vitally  affected,  as  if  she 
were  of  no  account  in  the  cabinet  of  nations,  then  I  say 
emphatically  that  peace  at  that  price  would  be  a  humilia- 
tion intolerable  for  a  great  country  like  ours  to  endure." 
These  rhetorical  platitudes  were  uttered  at  the  time  of 
the  "conversations"  between  the  French  and  German 
Foreign  Offices  about  the  compensation  claimed  by 
Germany  for  giving  France,  once  for  all,  a  free  hand  in 


AFTER   THE    STORM  337 

Morocco.  Germany  was  apparently  making  demands  of 
an  exorbitant  character,  and  what  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
really  meant  was  that  if  Germany  persisted  in  these 
demands  England  would  fight  on  the  side  of  France  in 
order  to  resist  them.  As  a  genuinely  democratic  speaker, 
however,  he  followed  the  rule  of  many  publicists,  who 
are  paid  for  their  articles  by  the  column  and  say  to 
themselves,  "  Why  use  two  words  when  five  will  do  ? " 

Another  unfortunate  remark  that  may  be  noted  in  this 
connexion  was  that  made  by  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  in 
referring  to  the  German  navy  as  "to  some  extent  a 
luxury."  The  remark,  though  true  (also  to  a  certain 
extent),  was  unfortunate,  for  it  irritated  public  opinion  in 
Germany,  where  it  was  regarded  as  a  species  of  imper- 
tinent interference. 

As  evidence  of  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Emperor 
and  his  Government  for  a  friendly  arrangement  with 
England  may  be  quoted  the  statement  made  in  December, 
1910,  by  the  German  Chancellor,  Herr  von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  to  the  following  effect : — 

"  We  also  meet  England  in  the  desire  to  avoid  rivalry 
in  regard  to  armaments,  and  non-binding  pourparlers, 
which  have  from  time  to  time  taken  place,  have  been 
conducted  on  both  sides  in  a  friendly  spirit.  We  have 
always  advanced  the  opinion  that  a  frank  and  sincere 
interchange  of  views,  followed  by  an  understanding  with 
regard  to  the  economic  and  political  interests  of  the  two 
countries,  offers  the  surest  means  of  allaying  all  mistrust 
on  the  subject  of  the  relations  of  the  Powers  to  each 
other  on  sea  and  land."  The  Chancellor  went  on  to 
explain  that  this  mistrust  had  manifested  itself  "not  in 
the  case  of  the  Governments,  but  of  public  opinion." 

With  regard,  in  particular,  to  a  naval  understanding 

between  England  and  Germany,  Chancellor  von  Biilow, 

in  a  Budget  speech  in  March,  1909,  declared  that  up  to 

that  time  no  proposals  regarding  the  dimensions  of  the 

z 


33^  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

fleets  or  the  amount  of  naval  expenditure  which  could 
serve  as  a  basis  for  an  understanding  had  been  made  on 
the  side  of  England,  though  non-binding  conversations 
had  taken  place  on  the  subject  between  authoritative 
English  and  German  personalities.  In  March  last  year 
(1912)  such  proposals  may  be  said  to  have  been  made  in 
the  form  of  a  suggestion  by  Sir  Edward  Grey  during  the 
Budget  debate  that  the  ratio  of  16  to  10  (i.e.,  50  per 
cent,  more  and  10  per  cent,  over)  should  express  the 
naval  strength  of  the  two  countries.  The  suggestion  was 
"welcomed"  by  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  on  behalf  of  Ger- 
many in  February,  1913.  And  there  the  matter  rests. 

A  perhaps  inevitable  result  of  the  tension  between 
England  and  Germany  during  the  period  under  con- 
sideration has  been  the  amount  of  mutual  espionage 
discovered  to  be  going  on  in  both  countries.  An  inci- 
dent that  attracted  wide  attention  was  the  arrest  in  1910 
of  Captains  Brandon  and  Trench,  the  former  of  whom 
was  arrested  at  Borkum  and  the  latter  at  Emden.  They 
were  tried  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  Leipzig,  and  were 
both  sentenced  to  incarceration  in  a  fortress  for  four 
years.  Many  other  arrests,  prosecutions,  and  sentences 
have  taken  place  both  in  England  and  Germany  since 
then,  with  the  consequence  that  English  travellers  in 
Germany  and  German  travellers  in  England,  particularly 
where  the  travellers  are  men  of  military  bearing  and  are 
in  seaside  regions,  are  now  liable,  under  very  small  pro- 
vocation, to  a  suspicion  of  being  spies.  An  English  lady 
recently  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  German  in  England. 
He  was  a  very  nice  man,  she  said,  and  went  on  to  relate 
how  they  were  talking  one  day  about  Ireland.  She 
happened  to  mention  Tipperary.  "  Oh,  I  know  Tippe- 
rary,"  the  German  officer  said  ;  "  it  is  in  my  department." 
"  It  was  a  revelation  to  me,"  the  lady  concluded  when 
repeating  the  conversation  to  her  friends.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  Intelligence  Departments  of  the  army  in  both 


AFTER   THE    STORM  339 

Germany  and  England  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
roads,  hills,  streams,  forts,  harbours,  and  similar  details 
of  topography  in  almost  all  countries  of  the  world 
besides  their  own. 

In  regard  to  1911  should  be  recorded  the  journey  of 
the  Crown  Prince  and  Crown  Princess  to  England  to 
represent  the  Emperor  at  the  coronation  of  King  George 
in  June  ;  the  outbreak  in  September  of  the  Turco-Italian 
War,  which  placed  the  Emperor  in  a  dilemma,  of  which 
one  fork  was  his  duty  to  Italy  as  an  ally  in  the  Triplice 
and  the  other  his  platonic  friendship  with  the  Com- 
mander of  the  Faithful  ;  and,  lastly,  the  suspicion  of  the 
Emperor's  designs  that  arose  in  connexion  with  the 
fortification  of  Flushing  at  a  cost  to  Holland  of  some 
^3,000,000.  The  Emperor  was  supposed  to  have  insisted 
on  the  fortification  in  order  to  prevent  the  use  of  the 
Netherlands  by  Great  Britain  as  a  naval  base  against 
Germany.  Like  many  another  scare  in  connexion  with 
foreign  policy,  the  supposition  may  be  regarded  only  as 
a  product  of  intelligent  journalistic  "combination." 

Finally,  among  subsidiary  occurrences,  should  be  men- 
tioned the  meeting  of  the  Emperor  and  the  Czar  in  July, 
1912,  at  Port  Baltic  in  Finnish  waters,  accompanied  by 
their  Foreign  Ministers,  with  the  official  announcement  of 
the  stereotyped  "  harmonious  relations  "  between  the  two 
monarchs  that  followed  ;  and  the  premature  prolonga- 
tion, with  the  object  of  showing  solidarity  regarding  the 
Balkan  situation,  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  which,  entered 
into,  as  mentioned  earlier,  in  the  year  1882,  had  already 
been  renewed  in  1891,  1896,  and  1902.  The  next  renewal 
should  be  in  1925,  unless  in  the  meantime  an  international 
agreement  to  which  all  Great  Powers  are  signatories 
should  render  it  superfluous. 

The  war  in  the  Balkans  need  only  be  referred  to  in 
these  pages  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  Germany.  The 
position  of  Germany  in  regard  to  it,  so  far,  appears 


340          WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

simple ;  she  will  actively  support  Austria's  larger  interests 
in  order  to  keep  faith  with  her  chief  ally  of  the  Triplice, 
and  so  long  as  Austria  and  Russia  can  agree  regarding 
developments  in  the  Balkan  situation,  there  is  no  danger 
of  war  among  the  Great  Powers.  People  smiled  at  the 
declaration  of  the  Powers  some  little  time  ago  that  the 
status  quo  in  the  Balkans  should  be  maintained  ;  but  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  whole  phrase  is  status 
quo  ante  helium,  and  that,  once  war  has  broken  out,  the 
status,  the  position  of  affairs,  is  in  a  condition  of  solution, 
and  that  no  new  status  can  arise  until  the  war  is  over  and 
its  consequences  determined  by  treaties.  The  result  of 
the  present  war,  let  it  be  hoped,  will  be  to  confine 
Turkey  to  the  Orient,  where  she  belongs,  and  that  the 
Balkan  States,  possibly  after  a  period  of  internecine  feud, 
will  take  their  share  in  modern  European  progress  and 
civilization. 

The  amount  of  declaration,  asseveration,  recrimination 
(chiefly  journalistic),  rectification,  intimidation,  protesta- 
tion, pacification,  and  many  other  wordy  processes  that 
have  been  employed  in  almost  all  countries  with  the 
avowed  object  of  maintaining  peace  during  the  last  four 
years  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the  small  progress  actually 
made  in  regard  to  a  final  settlement  of  either  of  the  two 
great  international  points  at  issue — the  limitation  of 
armaments  and  compulsory  arbitration. 

Enough  perhaps  has  been  said  in  preceding  pages  to 
show  the  attitude  of  the  Emperor,  and  consequently  the 
attitude  of  his  Government,  towards  them.  A  history  of 
the  long  agitation  in  connexion  with  them  is  beyond 
the  scope  of  this  work.  The  agitation  itself,  however, 
may  be  viewed  as  a  step,  though  not  a  very  long  one,  on 
the  way  to  the  desired  solution,  and  it  is  a  matter  for 
congratulation  that  the  two  subjects  have  been,  and  are 
still  being,  so  freely  and  copiously  and,  on  the  whole, 
so  sympathetically  and  hopefully  ventilated.  The  great 


AFTER   THE   STORM  341 

difficulty,  apparently,  is  to  find  what  diplomatists  call  the 
proper  "  formula  " — the  law-that-must-be-obeyed.  Un- 
fortunately, the  finding  of  the  formula  cannot  be  regarded 
as  the  end  of  the  matter  ;  there  still  remains  the  finding 
of  what  jurists  call  the  "sanction,"  that  is  to  say,  the 
power  to  enforce  the  formula  when  found  and  to  punish 
any  nation  which  fails  to  act  in  accordance  with  it. 
Nothing  but  an  Areopagus  of  the  nations  can  furnish 
such  a  sanction,  but  with  the  present  arrangements  for 
balancing  power  in  Europe,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
ineradicable  pugnacity,  greed,  and  ambition  of  human 
nature,  such  an  Areopagus  seems  very  like  an  impossi- 
bility. Time,  however,  may  bring  it  about.  If  it  should, 
and  the  Golden  Age  begin  to  dawn,  an  epoch  of  new 
activities  and  new  horizons,  quite  possibly  more  novel 
and  interesting  than  any  which  has  ever  preceded  it,  will 
open  for  mankind. 


XVI 
THE   EMPEROR   TO-DAY 

WHAT  strikes  one  most,  perhaps,  on   looking 
back  over  the  Emperor's  life  and  time,  are  two 
surprising  inconsistencies,  one  relating  to  the 
Emperor  himself,  the  other  to  that  part  of  his  time  with 
which  he  has  been  most  closely  identified. 

The  first  arises  from  the  fact  that  a  man  so  many-sided, 
so  impulsive,  so  progressive,  so  modern — one  might 
almost  say  so  American — should  have  altered  so  little 
either  in  character  or  policy  during  quarter  of  a  century. 
This  is  due  to  what  we  have  called  his  mediaeval  nature. 
He  is  to-day  the  same  Hohenzollern  he  was  the  day  he 
mounted  the  throne,  observing  exactly  the  same  attitude 
to  the  world  abroad  and  to  his  folk  at  home,  tenacious  of 
exactly  the  same  principles,  enunciating  exactly  the  same 
views  in  politics,  religion,  morals,  and  art — in  every- 
thing which  concerns  the  foundations  of  social  life. 
He  still  believes  himself,  as  his  speeches  and  conduct 
show,  the  selected  instrument  of  Heaven,  and  acts  towards 
his  people  and  addresses  them  accordingly.  He  still 
opposes  all  efforts  at  political  change,  as  witness  his  atti- 
tude towards  electoral  reform,  towards  the  Germanization 
of  Prussian  Poland,  towards  the  Socialists,  towards 
Liberalism  in  all  its  manifestations.  He  is  still,  as  he 
was  at  the  outset  of  his  reign,  the  patron  of  classical 
art,  classical  drama,  and  classical  music.  He  is  still  the 
War  Lord  with  the  spirit  of  a  bishop  and  a  bishop  with  the 

342 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  343 

spirit  of  the  War  Lord.  He  is  still  the  model  husband  and 
father  he  always  has  been.  Most  men  change  one  way 
or  another  as  time  goes  on.  With  the  Emperor  time  for 
five-and-twenty  years  appears  to  have  stood  still. 

The  inconsistency  relating  to  his  time  arises  from  the 
contrast  between  the  real  and  the  seeming  character  of 
the  reign.  For,  strikingly  and  anomalously  enough, 
while  the  Emperor  has  been  steadily  pursuing  an 
economic  policy,  a  policy  of  peace,  his  entire  reign,  as 
one  turns  over  the  pages  of  its  history,  seems  to  resound, 
during  almost  every  hour,  with  martial  shoutings,  con- 
fused noises,  the  clatter  of  harness,  the  clash  of  swords, 
and  the  tramp  of  armies.  From  moment  to  moment  it 
recalls  those  scenes  from  Shakespearean  drama  in  which 
indeed  no  dead  are  actually  seen  upon  the  stage,  but  at 
intervals  the  air  is  filled  with  battle  cries,  "  with  excur- 
sions and  alarms,"  with  warriors  brandishing  their 
weapons,  calling  for  horses,  hacking  at  imaginary  foes, 
and  defying  the  world  in  arms. 

And  yet  in  reality  it  has  been  a  period  of  domestic 
peace  throughout.  Though  there  has  been  incessant 
talk  of  war,  and  at  times  war  may  have  been  near, 
it  never  came,  unless  the  South  West  African  and 
Boxer  expeditions  be  so  called.  Commerce  and  trade 
have  gone  on  increasing  by  leaps  and  bounds.  The 
population  has  grown  at  the  rate  of  nearly  three-quarters 
of  a  million  a  year.  Emperor  William  the  First's  social 
policy  has  been  closely  followed.  The  navy  has  been 
built,  the  army  strengthened,  the  Empire's  finances  re- 
organized ;  in  whatever  direction  one  looks  one  finds  a 
record  of  solid  and  substantial  and  peaceful  progress 
and  prosperity.  A  great  deal  of  it  is  owing,  admittedly, 
to  the  Germans  themselves,  but  no  small  share  of  it 
is  due  to  the  "  impulsive "  Emperor's  consistency  of 
character  and  conduct. 

Probably     the     inconsistencies    are     only     apparent. 


344  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Germany  and  her  Emperor  have  grown,  not  developed, 
if  by  development  is  meant  a  radical  alteration  in  structure 
or  mentality,  and  if  regard  is  had  to  the  real  Germany 
and  the  real  Emperor,  not  to  the  Germany  of  the  tourist, 
and  not  to  the  Emperor  of  contemporary  criticism.  It 
has  been  seen  that  the  Emperor's  nature  and  policy  have 
not  altered.  The  Constitution  of  Germany  has  not 
altered,  nor  her  Press,  nor  her  political  parties,  nor  her 
social  system,  nor,  indeed,  any  of  the  vital  institutions 
of  her  national  life.  With  one  possible  exception — the 
navy.  The  navy  is  a  new  organic  feature,  and,  like  all 
organisms,  is  exerting  deep  and  far-reaching  influences. 
Germany,  of  course,  is  in  a  process  of  development,  a 
state  of  transition.  But  nations  are  at  all  times  in  a  state 
of  transition,  more  or  less  obvious  ;  and  it  will  require 
yet  a  good  many  years  to  show  what  new  forms  and  fruits 
the  development  now  going  on  in  Germany  is  to  bring. 
The  Emperor,  it  is  safe  to  say,  will  remain  the  same, 
mediaeval  in  nature,  modern  in  character,  to  the  end  of 
his  life. 

The  main  thing,  however,  to  be  noted  both  about 
Germany  and  the  German  Emperor  is  what  they  stand 
for  in  the  movement  of  world-ideas  at  the  present  time. 
Germans  cause  foreigners  to  smile  when  they  prophesy 
that  their  culture,  their  civilization,  will  become  the  culture 
and  the  civilization  of  the  world.  The  sameness  of  ideas 
that  prevailed  in  mediaeval  times  about  life  and  religion — 
about  this  life  and  the  life  to  come — was  succeeded,  and 
first  in  Germany,  by  an  enormous  diversity  of  ideas 
about  life  and  religion,  beginning  with  the  Rationalism 
(or  "  enlightenment,"  as  the  Germans  call  it)  which  set 
in  after  the  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  ;  and  this 
diversity  again  promises — let  us  at  least  hope — to  go  back, 
in  one  of  the  great  circles  that  make  one  think  human 
thought,  too,  moves  in  accordance  with  planetary  laws,  to 
a  sameness  of  views  among  the  nations  in  regard  to  the 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  345 

real  interests  of  society,  which  are  peace,  religious  har- 
mony through  toleration,  commercial  harmony  through 
international  intercourse,  and  the  mutual  goodwill  o 
governments  and  peoples.  For  all  this  order  of  ideas 
the  Emperor,  notwithstanding  his  mailed  fist  and  shining 
armour,  stands,  and  in  this  spirit  both  he  and  the  German 
mind  are  working. 

More  than  half  a  century  has  passed  over  the  Emperor's 
head  ;  let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  him  as  the  man 
and  the  monarch  he  is  to-day.  Time  appears  to  have 
dealt  gently  with  him  ;  the  heart,  one  hears  it  said,  never 
grows  bald,  and  in  all  but  years  the  Emperor  is  probably 
as  young  and  untiring  as  ever. 

His  personal  appearance  has  altered  little  in  the  last 
decade.  An  observer,  who  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
him  at  close  quarters  in  1902,  describes  him,  as  he  then 
appeared,  as  follows  : — 

"  I  was  standing  within  arm's  length  of  him  at  Cux- 
haven,  where  we  were  waiting  the  landing  of  Prince 
Henry,  his  brother,  on  his  return  from  America.  The 
Deutschland  had  to  be  warped  alongside  the  quay,  and 
the  Emperor,  in  the  uniform  of  a  Prussian  general  of 
infantry,  meanwhile  mixed  with  the  suite  and  chatted, 
now  to  one,  now  to  another,  with  his  usual  bonhomie. 

I  was  speaking  to  the  American  attache,  Captain  H , 

when  the  Emperor  came  up,  and  naturally  I  stood  a  little 
to  one  side. 

"  The  thing  that  most  struck  me  was  the  Emperor's  large 
grey  eyes.  As  they  looked  sharply  into  those  of  Captain 

H or  glanced  in  my  direction,  they  seemed  to  show 

absolutely  no  feeling,  no  sentiment  of  any  kind.  Not 
that  they  gave  the  notion  of  hardness  or  falsity.  They 
were  simply  like  two  grey  mirrors  on  which  outward 
things  made  no  impression. 

"  The  other  features  did  not  strike  me  as  anything  out 
of  the  ordinary,  but  the  whole  face  had  an  air  of  ability, 


346  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

»  cleverness,  briskness,  and  health.  The  Emperor  is  about 
middle  height,  with  the  body  very  erect,  the  walk  firm, 
and  is  very  energetic  in  his  gestures.  I  did  not  notice 
the  shortness  of  the  left  arm,  but  that  may  have  been 
because  his  left  hand  was  leaning  on  his  sword-hilt. 
Captain  H told  me  he  could  not  put  on  his  over- 
coat without  assistance,  and  that  the  hand  is  so  weak 
he  can  do  very  little  with  it.  There  was  nothing  of  a 
Hohenzollern  hanging  under-lip." 

The  following  judgment  was  formed  a  year  or  two  ago 
by  an  American  diplomatist  :  "  I  have  often  met  him," 
the  diplomatist  said,  "  and  only  speak  of  the  impression 
he  made  on  me.  I  would  describe  him  as  intelligent 
rather  than  intellectual.  He  appreciates  men  of  learning 
and  of  philosophic  mind,  and  while  not  learned  and  philo- 
sophic himself,  enjoys  seeing  the  learned  and  philosophic 
at  work,  and  gladly  recognizes  their  merit  when  their 
labours  are  thorough  and  well  done.  His  mind  is  mar- 
vellously quick,  but  it  does  not  dwell  on  anything  for 
long  at  a  time.  It  takes  in  everything  presented  to  it  in, 
so  to  speak,  a  hop,  skip,  and  jump. 

"In  company  he  is  never  at  rest,  and  surprises  one  by 
his  lively  play  of  features  and  the  entirely  natural  and 
unaffected  expression  of  his  thoughts.  He  is  sitting  at  a 
lecture,  perhaps,  when  a  notion  occurs  to  him,  and  forth- 
with indicates  it  by  a  humorous  grimace  or  wink  to  some 
one  sitting  far  away  from  him.  He  is  always  saying 
unexpected  things.  On  the  whole,  he  is  a  right  good 
fellow,  and  I  can  imagine  that,  though  he  can  come 
down  hard  on  one  with  a  heavy  hand  and  stern  look,  he 
does  not  do  so  by  the  instinct  of  a  despot,  but  acting 
under  a  sense  of  duty." 

Another  diplomatist  has  remarked  the  Emperor's  habit 
in  conversation  of  tapping  the  person  he  is  talking  to  on 
the  shoulder  and  of  scrutinizing  him  ail  over — "  ears,  nose, 
clothes,  until  it  makes  one  feel  quite  uncomfortable." 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  347 

The  next  sketch  of  him  is  as  he  may  be  seen  any  day 
during  the  yachting  week  in  June  at  Kiel  : — 

"  The  Emperor  is  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  Yacht 
Club,  dressed  in  a  blue  lounge  suit  with  a  white  peaked 
cap.  He  is  sitting  carelessly  on  the  side  of  a  table, 
dangling  his  legs  and  discussing  with  fellow-members 
and  foreign  yachtsmen  the  experience  of  the  day,  now 
speaking  English,  now  French,  now  German.  He  seems 
quite  in  his  element  as  sportsman,  and  puts  every  one  at 
ease  round  him.  His  expression  is  animated  and  his 
voice  hearty,  if  a  little  strident  to  foreign  ears.  His  right 
hand  and  arm  are  in  ceaseless  movement,  emphasizing 
and  enforcing  everything  he  says.  He  asks  many  ques- 
tions and  often  invites  opinion,  and  when  it  differs 
from  his  own,  as  sometimes  happens,  he  takes  it  quite 
good-humouredly." 

To-day  the  Emperor  is  outwardly  much  the  same  as  he 
has  just  been  described.  He  is  perhaps  slightly  more 
inclined  to  stoutness.  His  features,  though  they  speak 
of  cleverness  and  manliness,  are  forgotten  as  one  looks 
into  the  keen  and  quickly  moving  grey  eyes  with  their 
peculiar  dash  of  yellow.  He  is  well  set  up,  as  is  proper 
for  a  soldier  ever  actively  engaged  in  military  duties,  and 
his  stride  continues  firm  and  elastic.  He  is  still  con- 
stantly in  the  saddle.  His  hair,  still  abundant,  is  yet 
beginning  to  show  the  first  touches  of  the  coming  frost 
of  age,  and  the  reddish  brown  moustache,  once  famous 
for  its  haughtily  upturned  ends,  has  taken,  either  naturally 
or  by  the  aid  of  Herr  Haby,  the  Court  barber,  who 
attends  him  daily,  a  nearly  level  form. 

In  public,  whether  mounted  or  on  foot,  he  preserves 
the  somewhat  stern  air  he  evidently  thinks  appropriate  to 
his  high  station,  but  more  frequently  than  formerly  the 
features  relax  into  a  pleasant  smile.  The  colour  of  the 
face  is  healthy,  tending  to  rosiness,  and  the  general  im- 
pression given  is  that  of  a  clever  man,  conscious,  yet  not 


348  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

overconscious,  of  his  dignity.  The  shortness  of  the  left 
arm,  a  defect  from  birth,  is  hardly  noticeable. 

The  extirpation  of  a  polypus  from  the  Emperor's 
throat  in  1903,  which  must  have  been  one  of  the 
severest  trials  of  his  life  when  the  history  of  his  father's 
mortal  illness  is  remembered,  might  lead  one  to  suppose 
that  his  vocal  organs  would  always  surfer  from  the  effects 
of  the  operation.  It  has  fortunately  turned  out  other- 
wise. His  voice  was  originally  strong  by  nature,  and 
remains  so.  It  never  seems  tired,  even  when,  as  it  often 
does,  it  pleases  him  to  read  aloud  for  his  own  pleasure 
or  that  of  a  circle  of  friends.  It  frequently  occurs  that  he 
will  pick  up  a  book,  one  of  his  ancient  favourites,  Horace 
or  Homer  perhaps,  Mr.  Stewart  Houston  Chamber- 
lain's "  Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  " — a  work 
he  greatly  admires — or  a  modern  publication  he  has 
read  of  in  the  papers,  and  read  aloud  from  it  for  an  hour 
or  an  hour  and  a  half  at  a  time.  Nor  is  his  reading 
aloud  confined  to  classical  or  German  books.  He  is 
equally  disposed  to  choose  works  in  English  or  French 
or  Italian,  and  when  he  reads  these  he  is  fond  of  doing 
so  with  a  particularly  clear  and  distinct  enunciation, 
partly  as  practice  for  himself,  and  partly  that  his  hearers 
may  understand  with  certainty.  This  is  not  all,  for  there 
invariably  follows  a  discussion  upon  what  has  been  read, 
and  in  it  the  Emperor  takes  a  constant  and  often 
emphatic  part.  It  has  been  remarked  that  at  the  close 
of  the  longest  sitting  of  this  character  his  voice  is  as 
strong  and  sonorous  as  at  the  beginning. 

He  is  still  the  early  riser  and  hard  worker  he  has 
always  been  ;  still  devotes  the  greater  part  of  his  time 
to  the  duties  that  fall  to  him  as  War  Lord  ;  still  races 
about  the  Empire  by  train  or  motor-car,  reviewing  troops, 
laying  foundation-stones,  unveiling  statues,  dedicating 
churches,  attending  manoeuvres,  encouraging  yachting 
at  Kiel  by  his  presence  during  the  yachting  week,  or 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  349 

hurrying  off  to  meet  the  monarch  of  a  foreign  country. 
He  still  enjoys  his  annual  trip  along  the  shores  of  Norway 
or  breaks  away  from  the  cares  of  State  to  pass  a  few 
weeks  at  his  Corfu  castle,  dazzling  in  its  marble  whiteness 
and  overlooking  the  Acroceraunian  mountains,  or  to 
hunt  or  shoot  at  the  country  seat  of  some  influential  or 
wealthy  subject.  In  fine,  he  is  still  engaged  with  all  the 
energy  of  his  nature,  if  in  a  somewhat  less  flamboyant 
fashion  than  during  his  earlier  years,  in  his,  as  he  believes, 
divinely  appointed  work  of  guiding  Prussia's  destiny  and 
building  up  the  German  Empire. 

It  is  because  he  is  an  Empire-builder  that  his  numerous 
journeys  abroad  and  restlessness  of  movement  at  home 
have  earned  for  him  the  nickname  of  the  "travelling 
Kaiser."  The  Germans  themselves  do  not  understand 
his  conduct  in  this  respect.  If  one  urges  that  Hohen- 
zollern  kings,  and  none  of  them  more  than  the  Great 
Elector  and  Frederick  the  Great,  were  incessant  travellers, 
they  will  reply  that  their  kings  had  to  be  so  at  a  time 
when  the  Empire  was  not  yet  established,  when  rebellious 
nobles  had  to  be  subdued,  and  when  the  spirit  of  pro- 
vincialism and  particularism  had  to  be  counteracted. 
Hence,  they  say,  former  Hohenzollerns  had  to  exercise 
personal  control  in  all  parts  of  their  dominions,  see  that 
their  military  dispositions  were  carried  out,  and  study 
social  and  economic  conditions  on  the  spot ;  but  nowa- 
days, when  the  Empire  is  firmly  established,  when  the 
administration  is  working  like  a  clock  and  the  post  and 
telegraph  are  at  command,  the  Emperor  should  stay  at 
home  and  direct  everything  from  his  capital. 

The  Emperor  himself  evidently  takes  a  different  view. 
He  does  not  consider  the  forty-year-old  Empire  as  com- 
pleted and  consolidated,  but  regards  it  much  as  the  Great 
Elector  or  Frederick  the  Great  regarded  Prussia  when 
that  kingdom  was  in  the  making.  He  believes  in  propa- 
gating the  imperial  idea  by  his  personal  presence  in  all 


350  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

parts  of  the  Empire,  and  at  the  same  time  observing  the- 
progress  that  is  being  made  there.  He  is,  finally,  a 
believer  in  getting  into  personal  touch,  as  far  as  is  possible, 
with  foreign  monarchs,  foreign  statesmen,  and  foreign 
peoples,  for  he  doubtless  sees  that  with  every  decade 
the  interests  of  nations  are  becoming  more  closely 
identified. 

In  connexion  with  the  subject  of  the  Emperor's 
travelling,  mention  may  be  made  of  the  fact  that  many 
years  ago  he  thought  it  necessary  to  explain  himself 
publicly  in  reference  to  the  idea,  prevalent  among  his 
people  at  the  time,  that  he  was  travelling  too  much. 
"  On  my  travels,"  he  said,  "  I  design  not  only  to  make 
myself  acquainted  with  foreign  countries  and  institutions, 
and  to  foster  friendly  relations  with  neighbouring  rulers, 
but  these  journeys,  which  have  been  often  misinterpreted, 
have  high  value  in  enabling  me  to  observe  home  affairs 
from  a  distance  and  submit  them  to  a  quiet  examination." 
He  expresses  something  in  the  same  order  of  thought 
in  a  speech  telling  of  his  reflections  on  the  high  sea 
concerning  his  responsibilities  as  ruler  :  "  When  one 
is  alone  on  the  high  sea,  with  only  God's  starry  heaven 
above  him,  and  holds  communion  with  himself,  one  will 
not  fail  to  appreciate  the  value  of  such  a  journey.  I 
could  wish  many  of  my  countrymen  to 'live  through 
hours  like  these,  in  which  one  can  take  reckoning  of 
what  he  has  designed  and  what  achieved.  Then  one 
would  be  cured  of  over  self-estimation — and  that  we 
all  need." 

When  the  Emperor  is  about  to  start  on  a  journey, 
confidential  telegrams  are  sent  to  the  railway  authorities 
concerned,  and  immediately  a  thorough  inspection  of  the 
line  the  Emperor  is  about  to  travel  over  is  ordered. 
Tunnels,  bridges,  points,  railway  crossings,  are  all  sub- 
jected to  examination,  and  spare  engines  kept  in  im- 
mediate readiness  in  case  of  a  breakdown  occurring  to 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  351 

the  imperial  train.  The  police  of  the  various  towns 
through  which  the  monarch  is  to  pass  are  also  communi- 
cated with  and  their  help  requisitioned  in  taking  pre- 
cautions for  his  safety.  Like  any  private  person,  the 
Emperor  pays  his  own  fares,  which  are  reckoned  at 
the  rate  of  an  average  of  fifteen  shillings  to  one  pound 
sterling  a  mile.  A  recent  journey  to  Switzerland  cost  him 
in  fares  £200.  Of  late  years  he  has  saved  money  in  this 
respect  by  the  more  frequent  use  of  the  royal  motor-cars. 
The  royal  train  is  put  together  by  selecting  those  required 
from  fifteen  carriages  which  are  always  ready  for  an 
imperial  journey.  If  the  journey  is  short,  a  saloon 
carriage  and  refreshment  car  are  deemed  sufficient  ;  in 
case  of  a  long  journey  the  train  consists  of  a  buffer 
carriage  in  addition,  with  two  saloon  cars  for  the  suite 
and  two  wagons  for  the  luggage.  The  train  is  always 
accompanied  by  a  high  official  of  the  railway,  who,  with 
mechanics  and  spare  guard,  is  in  direct  telephonic  com- 
munication with  the  engine-driver  and  guard.  The 
carriages  are  coloured  alike,  ivory-white  above  the 
window-line  and  lacquered  blue  below. 

All  the  carriages,  with  the  exception  of  the  saloon 
dining-car,  are  of  the  corridor  type.  A  table  runs  down 
the  centre  of  the  dining-car  ;  the  Emperor  takes  his  seat 
in  the  centre,  while  the  rest  of  the  suite  and  guests  take 
their  places  at  random,  save  that  the  elder  travellers  are 
supposed  to  seat  themselves  about  the  Emperor.  If  the 
Emperor  has  guests  with  him  they  naturally  have  seats 
beside  or  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  their  host.  Break- 
fast is  taken  about  half-past  eight,  lunch  at  one,  and 
dinner  at  seven  or  eight.  The  Emperor  is  always  talkative 
at  table,  and  often  draws  into  conversation  the  remoter 
members  of  the  company,  occasionally  calling  to  them 
by  their  nickname  or  a  pet  name.  He  sits  for  an  hour 
or  two  after  dinner,  with  a  glass  of  beer  and  a  huge  box 
of  cigars  before  him,  discussing  the  incidents  of  the 


journey  or  recalling  his  experiences  at  various  periods 
of  his  reign. 

The  Emperor's  disposition  of  the  year  remains  much 
what  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign.  The  chief 
changes  in  it  are  the  omission  of  a  yachting  visit  to 
Cowes,  which  he  made  annually  from  1889  to  1895,  and, 
since  1908,  the  habit  of  making  an  annual  summer  stay 
at  his  Corfu  castle,  "  Achilleion,"  instead  of  touring  in 
the  Mediterranean  and  visiting  Italian  cities.  January 
is  spent  in  Berlin  in  connexion  with  the  New  Year 
festivities,  ambassadorial  and  other  Court  receptions, 
drawing-rooms,  and  balls,  and  the  celebration  of  his 
birthday  on  the  ayth.  The  Berlin  season  extends  into 
the  middle  of  February,  so  that  part  of  that  month  also 
is  spent  in  Berlin.  During  the  latter  half  of  February 
and  in  March  the  Emperor  is  usually  at  Potsdam,  occa- 
sionally motoring  to  Berlin  to  give  audience  or  for  some 
special  occasion.  April  and  part  of  May  are  passed  in 
Corfu.  Towards  the  end  of  May  the  Emperor  returns 
to  Germany  and  goes  to  Wiesbaden  for  the  opera  and 
Festspiele  in  the  royal  theatre  ;  but  he  must  be  in  Berlin 
before  May  has  closed,  for  the  spring  parade  of  the 
Berlin  and  Potsdam  garrisons  on  the  vast  Tempelhofer 
Field.  His  return  on  horseback  from  this  parade  is 
always  the  occasion  of  popular  enthusiasm  in  Berlin's 
principal  streets.  In  early  June  the  Emperor  stays  at 
Potsdam  or  perhaps  pays  a  visit  to  some  wealthy  noble, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  month  the  yachting  week  calls  him 
to  Kiel.  Once  that  is  over  he  proceeds  on  his  annual 
tour  along  the  coast  of  Norway.  September  sees  him 
back  in  Germany  for  the  autumn  manoeuvres.  October 
and  November  are  devoted  to  shooting  at  Rominten  or 
some  other  imperial  hunting  lodge,  or  with  some  large 
landowner  or  industrial  magnate.  The  whole  of  Decem- 
ber is  usually  spent  at  Potsdam,  save  for  an  annual  visit 
to  his  friend  Prince  Fiirstenberg  at  Donaueschingen. 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  353 

Naturally  he  is  in  Potsdam  for  Christmas,  when  all  the 
imperial  family  assemble  to  celebrate  the  festival  in  good 
old  German  style. 

In  music,  as  we  know,  he  retains  the  classical  tastes 
he  has  always  cultivated  and  sometimes  dictatorially 
recommended.  Good  music,  he  has  said,  is  like  a 
piece  of  lace,  not  like  a  display  of  fireworks.  He  still 
has  most  musical  enjoyment  in  listening  to  Bach  and 
Handel.  The  former  he  has  spoken  of  as  one  of  the 
most  "  modern  "  of  composers,  and  will  point  out  that 
his  works  contain  melodious  passages  that  might  be  the 
musical  thought  of  Franz  Lehar  or  Leo  Fall.  He  has 
no  great  liking  for  the  music  of  Richard  Strauss,  and 
his  admiration  of  Wagner,  if  certain  themes,  that  must, 
one  feels,  have  been  drawn  from  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  be  excepted,  is  respectful  rather  than  rapturous. 
Of  Wagner's  works  the  "  Meistersingers  "  is  "  my 
favourite." 

A  faculty  that  in  the  Emperor  has  developed  with  the 
years  is  that  of  applying  a  sense  of  humour,  not  originally 
small,  to  the  events   of    everyday   life.       He  is  always 
ready  to  joke  with  his  soldiers  and  sailors,  with  artists, 
professors,  ministers — in  short,  with  men  of  every  class 
and   occupation.     Several   stories   in   illustration   of   his 
humour  are  current,  but  a  homely  example  or  two  may 
here   suffice.     He    is    sitting   in    semi-darkness    in    the 
parquet  at  the  Royal  Opera  House.      "  Le  Prophete  "  is 
in  rehearsal,  and  it  is  the  last  act,  in  which  there  is  a 
powder  cask,  ready  to  blow  everything  to  atoms,  standing 
outside  the  cathedral.     Fraulein  Frieda  Hempel,  as  the 
heroine,  appears  with  a  lighted  torch  and  is  about  to 
take  her  seat  on  the  cask.     Suddenly  the  imperial  voice 
is  heard  from  the  semi-gloom  :    "  Fraulein   Hempel,   it 
is  evident  you  haven't  had  a  military  training  or   you 
wouldn't  take  a  light  so  near  a  barrel  of  gunpowder." 
And  the  prima  donna  has  to  take  her  place  on  the  other 

AA 


354  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

side  of  the  stage.  Or  he  is  presenting  Professor  Siegfried 
Ochs,  the  famous  manager  of  the  Philharmonic  Concerts, 
with  the  Order  of  the  Red  Eagle,  third  class,  and  with 
a  friendly  smile  gracefully  excuses  himself  for  conferring 
an  "  Order  of  the  third  class  on  a  musician  of  the  first 
class,"  by  pleading  official  rule.  A  third  popular  anecdote 
tells  of  a  lady  seated  beside  him  at  the  dinner-table. 
Salad  is  being  offered  to  her,  but  she  thinks  she  is  bound 
to  give  all  her  attention  to  the  Emperor  and  takes  no 
notice  of  it.  Thereupon  the  Emperor  :  "  Gnadige  Frau, 
an  Emperor  can  wait,  but  the  salad  cannot."  Possibly 
the  Emperor  had  in  mind  Louis  XIII,  who  complained 
that  he  never  ate  a  plate  of  warm  soup  in  his  life,  it  had 
to  pass  through  so  many  hands  to  reach  him. 

The  German  takes  his  theatre  as  he  takes  life,  seriously. 
To  cough  during  a  performance  attracts  embarrassing 
attention,  a  sneeze  almost  amounts  to  misdemeanour. 
To  the  German  the  theatre  is  a  part  of  the  machinery 
of  culture,  and  accordingly  he  is  not  so  easily  bored  as 
the  Anglo-Saxon  playgoer,  who  demands  that  drama 
shall  contain  that  great  essential  of  all  good  drama, 
action.  To  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  more  plentiful  and 
rapid  the  action  is,  the  better.  The  German,  differing 
from  most  Anglo-Saxons,  likes  historical  scenes,  great 
processions,  costume  festivals,  the  representation  of 
mediaeval  events  in  which  his  monarchs  and  generals 
played  conspicuous  parts.  The  Emperor  has  the  same 
disposition  and  taste. 

Yet  both  national  taste  and  disposition,  like  other  of 
the  nation's  characteristics,  are  slowly  altering  with  the 
growth  of  the  modern  spirit,  and  Germans  now  begin 
to  require  something  of  a  more  modern  kind,  a  more 
social  order,  something  that  comes  home  more  to  their 
business  and  bosoms.  Greater  variety  in  subject  is  asked 
for,  more  laughter  and  tears,  more  representations  of 
scenes  and  life  dealing  with  everyday  doings  and  the 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  355 

fate  of  the  people  as  distinguished  from  the  doings  and 
fate  of  their  rulers  and  the  upper  classes.  The  Emperor 
has  not  followed  his  people  in  the  new  direction.  He 
regards  the  stage  as  a  vehicle  of  patriotism,  an  instru- 
ment of  education,  a  guider  of  artistic  taste,  an  inculcator 
of  old-time  morality.  Its  aim,  he  appears  to  think,  is 
not  to  help  to  produce,  primarily,  the  good  man  and 
good  citizen,  but  the  good  man  and  good  monarchist, 
and  —  perhaps  —  not  so  much  primarily  the  good 
monarchist  as  the  liege  subject  of  the  Hohenzollern 
dynasty.  Having  secured  this,  he  looks  for  the  elevation 
of  the  public  taste  along  his  own  lines.  He  assumes 
that  the  public  taste  can  be  elevated  from  without,  from 
above,  when  it  can  only  be  elevated  proportionately  with 
its  progress  in  general  education  and  its  purification 
from  within.  Consequently  he  is  for  the  "  classical,"  as 
in  the  other  arts.  But  apart  from  its  aims  and  uses,  the 
theatre  has  always  appealed  to  him.  His  fondness  for 
it  is  a  Hohenzollern  characteristic,  which  has  shown 
itself,  with  more  or  less  emphasis,  in  monarch  after 
monarch  of  the  line.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  monarchs 
should  take  pleasure  in  the  stage,  since  the  theatre  is 
one  of  the  places  which  brings  them  and  their  subjects 
together  in  the  enjoyment  of  common  emotions,  and 
shows  them,  if  only  at  second  hand,  the  domestic  lives 
of  millions,  from  personal  acquaintance  with  which  their 
royal  birth  and  surroundings  exclude  them. 

The  Emperor  treats  all  artists,  male  and  female,  in  the 
same  friendly  and  unaffected  manner.  There  is  never 
the  least  soupfon  of  condescension  in  the  one  case  or 
flirtation  in  the  other,  but  in  both  a  lively  and  often 
unexpectedly  well-informed  interest  in  the  play  or  other 
artistic  performance  of  the  occasion,  and  in  the  actors' 
or  actresses'  personal  records.  The  nationality  of  the 
artist  has  apparently  nothing  to  do  with  this  interest. 
The  Emperor  invites  French,  Italian,  English,  American 


356  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

or  Scandinavian  artists  to  the  royal  box  after  a  perform- 
ance as  often  as  he  invites  the  artists  of  his  own  country, 
and,  once  launched  on  a  conversation,  nothing  gives 
him  more  pleasure  than  to  expound  his  views  on  music, 
painting,  or  the  drama,  as  the  case  may  be.  "Tempo 
— rhythm — colour,"  he  has  been  heard  to  insist  on 
to  a  conductor  whom  in  the  heat  of  his  conviction 
he  had  gradually  edged  into  a  corner  and  before  whom 
he  stood  with  gesticulating  arms — "All  the  rest  is 
Schwindel."  At  an  entertainment  given  by  Ambassador 
Jules  Cambon  at  the  French  Embassy  after  the  Morocco 
difficulty  had  been  finally  adjusted,  he  became  so  inter- 
ested while  talking  to  a  group  of  French  actors  that  high 
dignatories  of  the  Empire,  including  Princes,  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  and  Ministers,  standing  in  another  part  of  the 
salon,  grew  impatient  and  had  to  detach  one  of  their 
number  to  call  the  Emperor's  attention  to  their  presence. 
Since  then,  it  is  whispered,  it  has  become  the  special 
function  of  an  adjutant,  when  the  occasion  demands  it, 
diplomatically  and  gently  to  withdraw  the  imperial 
causeur  from  too  absorbing  conversation. 

Several  anecdotes  are  current  having  reference  to  the 
Emperor  as  sportsman.  One  of  them,  for  example, 
mentions  a  loving-cup  of  Frederick  William  Ill's  time, 
kept  at  the  hunting  lodge  of  Letzlingen,  which  is  filled 
with  champagne  and  must  be  emptied  at  a  draught  by 
anyone  visiting  the  lodge  for  the  first  time.  This  is  great 
fun  for  the  Emperor,  who  a  year  or  two  ago  made  a 
number  of  Berlin  guests,  including  Chancellor  von 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  the  Austrian  Ambassador, Szoghenyi- 
Marich,  the  Secretary  for  the  Navy,  Admiral  von  Tirpitz, 
and  the  Crown  Prince  of  Greece  stand  before  him  and 
drain  the  cup.  As  the  story  goes,  "  the  attempts  of  the 
guests  to  drink  out  of  the  heavy  cup,  which  is  fixed  into 
a  set  of  antlers  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  difficult  to 
drink  without  spilling  the  wine,  caused  great  amusement." 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  357 

The  principles  of  sport  generally,  it  may  be  here 
interpolated,  are  not  quite  the  same  in  Germany  as  in 
England,  though  no  country  has  imitated  England  in 
regard  to  sport  so  closely  and  successfully  as  Germany. 
Up  to  a  comparatively  few  years  ago  the  Germans  had 
neither  inclination  nor  means  for  it,  and  though  always 
enthusiastic  hunters,  hunting — not  the  English  fox- 
hunting, but  hunting  the  boar  and  the  bear,  the  wolf 
and  the  deer — was  almost  the  sole  form  of  manly  sport 
practised.  Turnen,  the  most  popular  sort  of  German 
indoor  gymnastics,  only  began  in  1861,  a  couple  of  years 
after  the  birth  of  the  Emperor.  There  are  now  nearly  a 
dozen  cricket  clubs  alone  in  Berlin,  football  clubs  all 
over  the  Empire,  tennis  clubs  in  every  town,  rowing 
clubs  at  all  the  seaports  and  along  the  large  rivers, 
nearly  all  following  English  rules  and  in  numerous  cases 
using  English  sporting  terms.  At  the  same  time  sport 
is  not  the  religion  it  is  in  England — indeed,  to  keep  up 
the  metaphor,  hardly  a  living  creed. 

The  German  attitude  towards  sport  is  not  altogether 
the  same  as  the  English  attitude.  In  England  the  object 
of  the  game  is  that  the  best  man  shall  win,  that  he  shall 
not  be  in  any  way  unfairly  or  unequally  handicapped 
vis-a-vis  his  opponent,  and  the  honour,  not  the  intrinsic 
value  of  the  prize,  is  the  main  consideration.  These 
principles  are  not  yet  fully  understood  or  adopted  in 
Germany,  possibly  owing  to  the  early  military  training 
of  the  German  youth  making  the  carrying  off  the  prize 
anyhow  and  by  any  means  the  main  object.  It  is 
Realpolitik  in  sport,  and  a  Realpolitik  which  is  not  wholly 
unknown  in  England  ;  but  while  the  spirit  of  Realpolitik 
is  still  perceivable  in  German  sport,  it  is  equally  perceiv- 
able that  the  standard  English  way  of  viewing  sporting 
competition  is  becoming  more  and  more  approached  in 
Germany. 

The  Emperor  is  an  enthusiastic  patron  of  sport  of  all 


358  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

healthy  outdoor  kinds,  not  as  sympathizing  with  the 
English  youth's  disposition  to  regard  play  as  work  and 
work  as  play,  to  give  to  his  business  any  time  he  can 
spare  from  his  sport,  but  because  he  estimates  at  its  full 
value  its  place  in  the  national  health-budget.  His 
personal  likings  are  for  bear-shooting,  deer-stalking,  and 
yachting,  but  he  also  wields  the  lawn-tennis  racket  and 
the  rapier  with  fair  skill.  The  names  of  several  of  his 
hunting  lodges — Rominten,  Springe,  Hubertusstock,  and 
so  on — are  familiar  to  many  people  in  all  countries. 
Rominten  preserve  is  in  East  Prussia,  and  embraces  about 
four  square  miles,  with  little  lakes  and  some  rising 
ground.  September  is  the  Emperor's  favourite  month 
for  visiting  it.  Here  one  year  he  shot  a  famous  eight- 
and-twenty-ender  antelope,  which  had  come  across  from 
Russian  territory.  Before  the  present  reign  the  deer, 
or  pig,  or  other  wild  animal  used  to  be  beaten  up  to  the 
royal  sportsman  of  the  day,  but  that  practice  has  long 
ceased,  and  the  Emperor  has  to  tramp  many  a  mile,  and 
at  times  crawl  on  all  fours  for  hundreds  of  yards,  to  get 
a  shot. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Emperor's  position  as  King  and 
Emperor  renders  inevitable  his  adoption,  either  of  natural 
bent,  which  is  extremely  probable,  or  from  a  policy 
in  harmony  with  the  wishes  of  his  people,  of  a  view  of 
the  monarch's  office  that  to  perhaps  most  Englishmen 
living  under  parliamentary  rule  must  seem  antiquated, 
not  to  say  absurd.  This  attitude  apart,  the  Emperor 
possesses,  as  it  is  hoped  has  been  sufficiently  shown,  as 
modern  and  progressive  a  spirit  as  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries. His  instant  recognition  of  all  useful  modern 
appliances,  particularly,  of  course,  those  of  possible 
service  in  war,  is  a  prominent  feature  of  his  mentality. 
He  went,  doubtless,  too  far  in  heralding  Count  Zeppelin, 
in  1909,  as  "the  greatest  man  of  the  century,"  but  the 
very  words  he  chose  to  use  marked  his  appreciation  of 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  359 

the  new  aeronautical  science  Count  Zeppelin  was  intro- 
ducing. Similarly,  the  moment  the  automobile  had 
entered  on  the  stage  of  reliability  it  won  a  place  in 
the  imperial  favour,  and  is  now  his  most  constant  means 
of  locomotion.  He  has  never,  it  is  true,  emulated  the 
enterprise  of  his  son,  the  Crown  Prince,  whom  Mr. 
Orville  Wright  had  as  a  companion  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  in  the  air  at  Potsdam  three  years  ago,  but  his 
interest  in  the  aeroplane  is  none  the  less  keen  because 
he  is  too  conscious  of  his  responsibilities  to  subject 
his  life  to  unnecessary  risk. 

Before  closing  our  sketch  of  the  Emperor  as  a  man 
by  quoting  appreciations  written  by  two  contemporary 
writers,  one  German  and  the  other  English,  it  may  be 
added  that  there  is  a  statesman  still — it  is  pleasant  to 
think — alive  who  could,  an  he  only  would,  draw  the 
Emperor's  character  perfectly,  both  as  man  and  monarch. 
Indeed,  as  has  been  seen,  he  has  more  than  once  sketched 
parts  of  it  in  Parliament,  but  only  parts — the  whole  char- 
acter of  the  Emperor,  on  all  its  sides  and  in  all  its 
ramifications,  has  yet  to  be  revealed.  Here  need  only 
be  quoted  what  Chancellor  Biilow — and  also,  by  the 
way,  Princess  Biilow — publicly  said  about  the  Emperor 
as  man.  The  Prince's  most  noteworthy  statement  was 
made  in  the  Reichstag  in  1903,  when,  in  answer  to 
Leader-of-the-Opposition  Bebel,  the  Prince  said,  "  One 
thing  at  least,  the  Emperor  is  no  Philistine,"  and  pro- 
ceeded to  explain,  rather  negatively  and  disappointingly, 
that  the  Emperor  possesses  what  the  Greeks  call  megalo- 
psychia — a  great  soul.  One  knows  but  too  well  the 
English  Philistine,  that  stolid,  solid,  self-sufficient  bulwark 
of  the  British  Constitution.  The  German  Philistine  is 
his  twin  brother,  the  narrow-minded,  conservative 
burgher.  Other  epithets  the  Prince  applied  to  the 
imperial  character  were  "simple,"  "natural,"  "hearty," 
"magnanimous,"  "clear-headed,"  and  "straightforward". 


360  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

while  Princess  Biilow,  during  a  conversation  her  husband 
was  having  with  the  French  journalist,  M.  Jules  Huret, 
in  1907,  interjected  the  remark  that  he  was  "a  person 
of  good  birth,  fils  de  bonne  inaison,  the  descendant  of 
distinguished  ancestors,  and  a  modern  man  of  great 
intelligence." 

But  let  us  see  how  the  Emperor  appears  to  his  con- 
temporaries. Dr.  Paul  Liman,  who  has  made  the  most 
serious  attempt  to  sketch  the  character  of  the  Emperor 
that  has  yet  appeared  in  German,  writes  : — 

"We  see  in  him  a  nature  whose  ground-tone  is 
enthusiasm,  phantasy,  and  a  passionate  impulse  towards 
action.  Filled  with  the  highest  sense  of  the  imperial 
rights  and  duties  assigned  to  him,  convinced  that  these 
are  the  direct  expression  of  a  divine  will,  he  has  inwardly 
thrown  off  the  bonds  of  modern  constitutional  ideas  and 
in  words  recently  spoken,  where  he  claimed  responsibility 
for  fifty-eight  million  people,  converted  these  ideas  into 
a  formula  that,  while  unconstitutional,  is  yet  moral  and 
deeply  earnest.  These  words  were  doubly  valuable  as 
giving  insight  into  the  soul  of  a  man  who  can  be  mis- 
taken in  his  conclusions  and  means,  but  not  in  his 
motives,  since  these  are  directed  to  the  general  weal. 
Here,  too,  we  find  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  at 
one  time  he  comes  before  us  surrounded  with  the  blue 
and  hazy  nimbus  of  the  romantic  period,  and  at  another 
as  the  most  modern  prince  of  our  time.  Out  of  the  rise 
in  him  of  the  consciousness  of  majesty  there  grows  a 
greater  sense  of  duty,  and  instead  of  keeping  watch  from 
his  turret  over  his  people  he  loses  himself  in  detail.  And 
precisely  here  must  he  fail,  because  modern  life  with  its 
development  is  far  too  rich  in  complications  and  activities 
to  admit  of  its  submitting  to  patriarchal  benevolence. 
And  because  an  artistic  strain  and  a  strong  fantasy 
simultaneously  work  in  him,  he  moves  joyfully  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  actual  to  raise  before  our  eyes  the 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  361 

highly  coloured  dream  of  the  picture  of  a  time  in  which 
all  men,  all  nations,  will  be  friendly  and  reconciled — an 
artist's  dream.  Here  is  something  characteristic,  some- 
thing unusual,  to  give  particular  charm  to  a  personality 
which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  dynasty 
hitherto.  There  may  be  concealed  in  it  the  seed  of 
illustrious  deeds,  but  only  too  often  disappointment  arid 
contempt  lie  scornfully  in  wait  when  the  deed  is  accom- 
plished. For  the  heaven  we  erect  on  earth  always 
comes  to  naught,  and  the  idealist  is  always  vanquished 
in  the  strife  with  fact." 

So  far,  Dr.  Liman.  Mr.  Sydney  Brooks,  in  a  sketch 
in  Maclure's  Magazine  for  July,  1910,  writes  : — 

"  The  drawback  to  any  and  to  every  regime  of  paternal 
absolutism  is  that  the  human  mind  is  limited.  The 
Kaiser  will  not  admit  it,  but  his  acts  prove  it.  It  is  not 
given  to  one  man  to  know  more  about  everything  than 
anybody  else  knows  about  anything ;  and  the  Kaiser, 
who  is  a  good  deal  of  a  dilettante,  and  believes  himself 
omniscient,  at  times  speaks  from  a  lamentable  half- 
knowledge,  and  occasionally  has  to  call  in  the  imperial 
authority  to  back  up  his  verdicts  against  the  judgments 
of  experts. 

"  Unquestionably  his  mind  is  of  an  unusual  order.  It 
is  a  facile,  quickly  moving  instrument ;  it  works  in  flashes ; 
it  assimilates  seemingly  without  effort,  and  it  is  at  its  best 
under  the  highest  pressure.  The  Kaiser  is  not  to  be 
laughed  at  for  wanting  to  know  all  there  is  to  be  known, 
but  he  may  justly  be  criticized  for  failing  to  distinguish 
between  the  attempt  and  its  failure.  .  .  . 

"  Is  it  all  charlatanerie  ?  Is  it  all  of  a  part  with  his 
speech  in  Russian  to  the  regiment  of  which  the  Czar 
made  him  honorary  colonel,  a  studied  trumpery  effort, 
designed  for  a  momentary  effect  ?  Is  the  Kaiser  just 
glitter  and  tinsel,  impulse  and  rhapsody,  with  nothing 
solid  beneath  ?  Is  it  his  supreme  object  to  make  an 


362  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

impression  at  any  cost,  to  force,  like  another  Nero,  the 
popular  applause  by  arts  more  becoming  to  a  cabotin 
than  a  sovereign  ?  Vanity,  restlessness,  a  consuming 
desire  for  the  palm  without  the  dust — an  intense  and 
theatrical  egotism — are  these  the  qualities  that  give  the 
clue  to  his  character  and  actions  ? 

"  I  do  not  think  so  altogether.  The  Kaiser  has 
scattered  too  much.  In  an  age  of  specialists  on  many 
subjects  he  speaks  like  an  amateur.  He  is  always  the 
hero,  and  often  the  victim,  of  his  own  imagination  ;  like 
a  star  actor,  he  cannot  bear  to  be  outshone ;  he  is 
morbidly,  almost  pruriently,  conscious  of  the  effect  he 
is  producing.  And  on  all  matters  of  intellect  and  taste 
his  influence  makes  for  blatant  mediocrity.  But  he 
is  not  meretricious  ;  at  bottom  he  is  not  by  any  means 
as  superficial  and  insincere  as  he  often  seems.  He  is 
one  of  those  men  in  whom  an  instinct  becomes  an 
immutable  truth,  an  idea  a  conviction,  and  a  suspicion 
a  certainty,  by  an  almost  instantaneous  process ;  and, 
the  process  completed,  action  follows  forthwith.  The 
Kaiser  is  always  resolved  to  do  the  right  thing  ;  the  right 
thing,  by  some  quaint  but  invariable  coincidence,  is 
whatever  he  is  resolved  to  do." 

These  appreciations  from  afar  may  be  as  sound  as 
they  are  brilliant,  but  they  rather  refer  to  the  non- 
essential  parts  of  the  character  of  the  Emperor  in  the 
first  flush  of  imperial  glory  than  to  the  essential  character 
as  it  has  developed  with  the  years. 

As  a  man — he  will  be  dealt  with  as  monarch 
presently — his  essential  character  must  be  judged  from 
his  conduct,  and  conduct  extending  over  a  good  many 
years.  One  might  say,  conduct  and  reputation,  but  that 
reputation  is  so  often  the  result  of  a  confused  mixture 
of  superficial  observation,  gossip,  tittle-tattle,  envy, 
hatred  and  uncharitableness,  and,  in  the  case  of  an 
Emperor,  of  merely  picturesque  and  effective  writing. 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  363 

There  is  another  source  which  would  materially  help 
us  in  forming  a  judgment,  but  it  is  wholly  wanting  in 
the  case  of  the  Emperor.  No  private  correspondence  of 
his  is,  as  yet,  available  to  the  world. 

Again,  a  man's  character  is  determined  by  his  motives, 
if  it  is  not  the  other  way  about ;  in  any  case,  a  man's 
motives  are  for  the  most  part  inscrutable  and  can  only 
be  deduced  from  conduct,  while  the  world  usually 
makes  the  mistake  of  explaining  conduct  by  attributing 
its  own  motives.  Tried,  then,  by  the  standard  of 
conduct,  the  only  one  available,  the  Emperor,  as  a 
man,  shows  us  a  high  type  of  humanity.  It  may  not, 
probably  does  not,  appeal  to  Englishmen  wholly,  but 
there  are  features  of  it  which  must  command,  and  do 
command,  the  respect  of  people  of  all  nationalities. 
And,  first  of  all,  he  is  a  good  man  ;  good  as  a  Christian, 
good  as  a  husband,  good  as  a  father,  good  as  a  patriot. 
With  all  the  power  and  temptation  to  gratify  his  incli- 
nations, he  has  no  personal  vices  of  the  baser  sort.  He 
is  moderate  in  the  satisfaction  of  his  appetites,  whether 
for  food  or  wine.  He  is  no  debauchee,  no  voluptuary, 
no  gambler.  He  is  faithful  to  old  friends  and  com- 
rades. He  has  high  ideals,  and  is  not  ashamed  of  them. 
He  is  neither  indolent  nor  fussy  ;  neither  a  cynic,  nor 
an  intriguer,  nor  a  fool  ;  he  is  neither  wrong-headed 
nor  stubborn ;  he  is  honest  and  sincere  to  a  degree 
that  does  him  honour  as  a  man,  if  it  has  sometimes 
proved  perilous  and  blameworthy  in  him  as  a  monarch. 
He  is  optimistic,  and  on  good  grounds.  He  is  no 
physical  or  intellectual  giant,  but  he  is  a  man  of  more 
than  average  all-round  intelligence  and  capacity.  If  this 
appreciation  is  correct,  or  even  approximately  correct, 
it  is  a  testimonial,  whatever  may  be  its  worth,  to  great 
merit. 

Yet  the  Emperor  as  man  has  his  failings  and  draw- 
backs, though  they  are  such  as  time  is  almost  sure  to 


364  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

diminish  or  eradicate.  Notably  in  his  earlier  years  he 
lacked  judgment,  the  power  of  balancing  considerations 
and  arriving  at  conclusions  from  them  which  men  more 
gifted  with  poise  would  endorse  as  logical  and  inevitable. 
He  does  not,  like  spare  Cassius,  see  quite  through  the 
deeds  of  men,  as  his  friendship  for  Count  Phili  Eulen- 
burg  and  the  malodorous  "Camarilla"  go  to  show,  and 
his  choice  of  Imperial  Chancellors,  his  grand  viziers,  has 
not  in  every  instance  been  happy.  He  has  less  tact 
than  character,  as  he  showed  once  in  Vienna,  where 
he  greatly  pained  the  Foreign  Minister,  Count  Golu- 
chowski,  one  day  at  a  club  by  calling  to  him,  "  Golu, 
Golu,  come  and  sit  beside  your  Kaiser."  He  has  the 
German  masculine  enjoyment  in  a  kind  of  humour 
which  would  have  delighted  Fox  and  the  three-bottle 
men,  but  would  sadly  shock  the  susceptibilities  of  an 
Oxford  aesthete.  He  has  a  share  of  personal  vanity, 
but  it  springs  from  the  desire  to  look  the  Emperor  he 
is,  not  because  he  supposes  for  a  moment  that  he  is  an 
Adonis.  He  is  theatrical  in  exactly  the  same  spirit — 
the  desire  imperially  to  impress  his  folk  in  the  sense 
of  the  German  word  imponieren,  a  word  that  needs 
no  translation.  If  he  has  lost  much  of  Dr.  Liman's 
"  romantik,"  he  still  retains  the  "  scatteredness "  of 
Mr.  Sidney  Brooks,  though  the  Emperor  would  rather 
hear  it  called  "  many-sidedness."  En  resume  he  has 
the  defects  of  his  qualities,  but  to  no  man  or  woman's 
unmerited  loss  or  injury,  and  if  we  weigh  the  good 
qualities  with  the  bad,  we  find  a  fine  balance  remaining 
to  his  credit  as  a  man. 

The  fierce  light  which  beats  upon  a  throne,  if  it  is 
apt  to  dazzle  the  bystander,  helps  those  at  a  distance, 
especially  in  these  days  of  the  still  fiercer  light  of 
modern  publicity,  to  judge  fairly  the  throne's  occupant. 
The  character  of  the  Emperor  as  monarch  ought,  there- 
fore, as  far  as  is  possible  in  the  absence  of  archives 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  365 

marked  "  secret  and  confidential "  and  yet  lying  in  the 
ministries  of  all  countries,  to  disclose  itself  nowadays 
with  reasonable  clearness.  Yet,  even  still,  different  and 
conflicting  opinions  regarding  it  are  to  be  gathered  in 
Germany  and  out  of  it. 

Indeed,  his  own  people  are  among  the  severest  critics. 
One  of  them,  Professor  Quidde,  early  in  the  reign,  made 
an  extraordinarily  ingenious,  but  quite  unjustifiable,  com- 
parison of  him  to  Caligula,  which,  though  only  consist- 
ing of  classical  quotations  and  making  no  mention  of 
the  Emperor,  was  seen  by  everybody  to  refer  to  him 
and  has  caused  discussion  ever  since.  While  many 
foreign  critics  have  done  the  Emperor  justice,  others  in 
turn  have  made  him  out  to  be  arrogant,  snobbish, 
bombastic,  superficial,  incompetent,  and  insincere.  To 
writers  of  this  class  he  is  always  the  German  War  Lord, 
ready  to  pounce,  like  a  highwayman  or  pirate,  on  any 
unprotected  person  or  property  he  may  come  across, 
regardless  of  treaty  obligations,  of  international  disaster, 
or  of  the  dictates  of  humanity.  One  day  they  announce 
he  is  planning  the  annexation  of  Holland  in  order  to 
get  a  further  set  of  naval  bases,  the  next  that  he  means 
to  take  Belgium  to  make  a  road  for  his  armies  into 
France,  a  third  that  he  is  about  to  set  at  naught  the 
Monroe  doctrine  and  with  his  Dreadnoughts  seize 
Brazil.  All  these  things  are  conceivable  and  not  im- 
possible, but  they  are  in  the  very  highest  degree 
improbable,  and,  as  yet  at  least,  ought  not  to  be  con- 
sidered seriously.  To  sensible  and  better-informed 
people  everywhere  he  is  a  Prussian  king  of  the  best 
type,  a  sincere  friend  of  peace,  with  a  mania  for  pushing 
the  maxim  "Si  vis  pacem  para  helium"  to  extremes,  politi- 
cally the  most  influential  man  in  Europe,  and,  with  all 
his  faults,  one  of  the  greatest  Germans  of  his  time. 

The  character  of  the  Emperor,  as  monarch,  is  reflected 
very  largely  in  the  character  of  the  Germany  of  to-day. 


366  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Germany  is  optimistic,  ardently  desirous  of  peace,  bent 
on  worthily  maintaining  the  great  place  she  has  won, 
and  deserved  to  win,  among  the  nations,  and  so 
materially  prosperous  as  to  make  many  Germans  tremble 
at  the  thought  that  the  prosperity  may  be  too  great 
to  last.  This,  however,  is  not  to  assert  that  in  Germany 
everything  is  couleur  de  rose.  There  are  not  a  few 
things  in  the  Empire's  social  and  political  conditions 
which  are  antiquated  or  promise  no  good.  Noxious 
as  well  as  beneficial  forces  have  been  introduced 
into  the  social  life  of  the  country  and  are  begin- 
ning to  make  themselves  felt.  German  home-life  is 
ceasing  to  be  the  admirable  and  exemplary  thing  it 
was  before  the  present  era  of  class  rivalry,  commer- 
cialism, the  parvenu  and  the  snob.  The  idealism  which 
made  the  Empire  a  possibility  is  passing  away.  There 
is  need,  and  a  general  demand,  for  franchise  reform  in 
Prussia,  and  a  change  in  the  spirit  of  Prussian  bureau- 
cratic administration  would  be  acceptable,  though  it  is, 
perhaps,  hopeless  to  expect  it.  The  opposition  in 
Germany  between  the  monarchic  and  the  democratic 
principle,  if  not  more  marked  than  it  was  twenty  or 
thirty  years  ago,  is  manifesting  itself  over  a  wider  and 
perhaps  deeper  area.  The  relations  between  capital  and 
labour  are  far  from  satisfactory  adjustment.  Social 
democracy  is  yearly  gaining  fresh  adherents,  and  if 
guilty  of  no  political  violence,  is  yet  a  constant  source 
of  danger  to  domestic  peace.  The  German  middle 
class,  that  bourgeoisie  which  is  the  backbone  and 
strength  of  the  Empire,  is  losing  its  Spartan  simplicity 
and  its  content  with  small  and  moderate  pleasures  ;  and 
the  national  virtues  of  thrift  and  self-denial  are  yielding 
to  the  temptations  of  wealth  and  luxury.  Business 
credit  is  unduly  stretched,  speculation  in  land  has 
attained  disturbing  proportions,  and  the  banking  world 
is  in  too  many  instances  allied  with  hazardous  or 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  367 

doubtful  enterprises.  Nevertheless  the  country  as  a 
whole  is  sound,  intellectually,  morally,  and  financially. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  mention  any  of  the  greater 
tasks  of  imperial  administration  to  which  the  Emperor 
does  not  continue  to  devote  personal  attention.  He  is 
the  life  and  soul  of  the  army  and  navy,  though  it  should 
not  be  forgotten  that  as  regards  the  latter  he  has  in 
Admiral  Tirpitz  an  executive  talent  worthy  of  his  own 
directive.  His  interest  in  the  mercantile  marine  remains 
what  it  was  when  in  1887,  as  Prince  William,  he  drew 
up  an  expert  opinion  which  decided  the  Hamburg- 
Amerika  Company  to  build  their  fast  ocean-going 
steamers  at  home  instead  of  abroad,  and  by  the  success 
of  the  experiment  commenced  the  modern  development 
of  Germany's  shipbuilding  industry.  Indeed,  his  attention 
to  the  Hamburg  line,  familiarly  known  as  the  "  Hapag  " 
line,  from  the  initial  letters  of  its  legal  title,  "  Hamburg- 
Amerika  Packetfahrt-Aktien  Gesellschaft,"  and  to  the 
Norddeutsche  line  from  Bremen,  has  given  rise  to  the 
unfounded  belief  that  he  is  heavily  interested  in  their 
financial  success.  Herr  Albert  Ballin,  the  Director  of 
the  Hamburg  line,  though  a  Jew,  is  among  his  intimates 
and  advisers,  and  the  Emperor  is  said  to  have  caused 
umbrage  more  than  once  to  Court  officials  and  the 
aristocracy  by  giving  directors  of  both  lines  precedence 
at  his  table.  Without  the  Emperor's  personal  support 
it  is  probable  that  neither  the  firm  of  Krupp  at  Essen 
nor  the  splendid  shipbuilding  yards  at  Hamburg, 
Bremen,  Stettin  and  elsewhere  would  continue  to 
progress  as  they  are  doing.  He  neglects  no  opportunity 
of  stimulating  Germany's  internal  and  external  trade. 
He  is  at  all  times  ready  to  encourage  the  introduction  of 
useful  achievements  of  modern  science  and  invention. 
And  lastly,  by  tactful  treatment  of  other  German  rulers, 
and  a  wise  policy  of  non-interference  with  their  States, 
he  is  promoting  a  feeling  of  federal  solidarity. 


368  WFLLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

The  Emperor's  conception  of  his  relations  to  the 
people  remains  to-day  what  he  was  brought  up  in  and 
what  it  was  when  he  mounted  the  throne.  In  England, 
America,  and  France  the  people  are  the  real  rulers,  and 
their  monarch  or  president  is  their  highest  official 
servant  and  representative.  The  idea  is  not  perhaps 
constitutionally  expressed,  but  it  is  universally  and  deeply 
felt  in  the  countries  named.  In  Germany  the  opposite 
theory  obtains — for  how  long  it  must  be  left  to  the 
future  to  say.  In  Germany  the  Emperor  is  the  real  ruler, 
the  genuine  monarch,  and  the  people  are  his  subjects, 
the  country  his  country.  Hence,  while  an  English  king 
in  an  official  document  or  public  statement  would  not 
think  of  putting  himself  first  and  the  people  or  country 
second,  the  German  Emperor's  official  statements  and 
speeches  constantly  repeat  such  expressions  as  "  I  and 
my  people,"  "  I  and  the  army,"  "  my  capital,"  "  me 
and  the  Fatherland,"  and  a  score  more ;  so  that 
Anglo-Saxons  and  other  foreigners  acquire  the  im- 
pression that  the  word  "  my "  is  no  figure  of  rhetoric 
or  pride,  but  a  simple  claim  of  ownership  or  possession. 
And  the  official  relation  between  monarch  and  people 
is  reflected  in  the  people's  ordinary  life.  To  the 
foreigner  it  continually  appears  that  the  public  are  the 
servants  of  the  official,  not  the  contrary,  whether 
officialism  takes  the  shape  of  a  post-office  clerk,  a  tramcar 
conductor,  a  shop  salesman,  a  policeman,  or  a  waiter. 
All  these  functionaries  are  the  possessors  of  an  authority 
which  the  citizen  is  expected  to,  and  usually  does,  obey. 
The  explanation  of  such  a  state  of  things  is  a  little 
abstruse,  but  an  attempt  may  be  made  at  giving  it. 

The  period  immediately  preceding  the  reign  of 
Frederick  the  Great  was  a  period  of  absolute  monarchy 
in  Germany,  a  system  introduced  from  France,  where 
Louis  XIV  had  proclaimed  the  doctrine  L'etat,  c'est  moi, 
according  to  which  the  lives  and  property  of  the  subject 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  369 

belonged  to  the  Prince,  whose  will  was  to  be  obeyed 
without  question  or  demur.  There  were  now  four 
hundred  courts  in  Germany  in  imitation  of  the  Court 
of  Versailles,  and  the  smaller  the  principality  the  greater 
the  absolutism.  Absolutism,  however,  required  an  army 
to  support  it  ;  hence  the  establishment  of  standing  and 
mercenary  armies  and  the  disuse  of  arms  by  the  citizen. 
The  result,  to  quote  Professor  Ernst  Richard's  work  on 
"German  Civilization,"  was  that  "the  pride  of  the  burgher 
and  the  peasant  was  broken.  A  submissive  servility 
hopelessly  pervaded  the  masses,  and  even  the  best  had 
lost  all  social  and  national  feeling,  all  sense  of  being 
part  of  a  greater  body.  .  .  .  The  luxurious  life  and  the 
arrogance  of  the  ruling  classes  were  accepted  as  a  matter 
of  course,  one  might  say  as  a  divine  institution.  Thus 
those  traits  of  character,  which  had  come  to  light  under 
the  cruel  stress  of  the  Thirty  Years  War,  fostered  by  the 
rule  of  despotism  and  the  worst  vices,  took  deeper  root. 
To  these  belong  that  greed  for  social  position,  for  titles 
and  the  smiles  of  the  great ;  servility  towards  those 
who  hold  a  higher  position  as  bearers  of  official  titles 
and  dignity,  a  fear  of  publicity,  above  all  a  rather 
remarkable  inclination  to  a  peevish,  petty,  and  sceptical 
attitude  as  regards  the  knowledge  and  ability  of  others. 
The  exaltation  of  the  position  of  the  prince  extended  to 
his  Court  and  his  officials,  as  well  as  to  the  nobility, 
which  had  long  since  become  a  Court  nobility." 

But  absolutism  had  to  go  with  the  changes  in  human 
thought  under  the  influence  of  Rationalism,  which 
brought  with  it  the  idea  of  the  State,  not  the  absolute 
prince,  as  ruler.  This  idea  was  embodied  in  the 
Rechtstaat,  or  State  based  on  law,  which  was  introduced 
by  Frederick  the  Great,  the  "  first  servant  of  the  State." 
The  State,  he  said,  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  citizens. 
"  One  must  be  insane,"  he  wrote,  "  to  imagine  that  men 
should  have  said  to  one  of  their  equals,  We  will  raise 


370  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

you  so  that  we  may  be  your  slaves,  we  will  give  you 
the  power  to  guide  our  thoughts  according  to  yours. 
They  rather  said  :  We  need  you  in  order  to  execute 
our  laws,  that  you  show  us  the  way,  and  defend  us. 
But  we  understand  that  you  will  respect  our  liberties." 

The  Rechtstaat  exists  in  Germany  to  the  present  day, 
the  Emperor  is  at  the  head  of  it,  and  the  people  are 
content  to  live  within  its  confines.  It  is  not,  as  has 
been  seen,  coterminous  with  the  whole  liberty  of  the 
subject,  but  is  yet  a  vast  bundle  of  rights  and  obligations 
which  in  public,  and  much  of  private,  life  leaves  as 
little  as  possible  to  the  unaided  or  undirected  intelligence 
or  goodwill  of  the  citizen.  It  is  an  exaggeration,  but 
still  expresses  a  popular  feeling  even  in  Germany  itself — 
and  certainly  describes  an  impression  made  on  the 
Anglo-Saxon — to  say  that  outside  this  bundle  of  laws 
and  regulations,  which,  clearly  and  logically  paragraphed, 
orders  to  a  nicety  all  the  public,  and  many  of  the 
private,  relations  of  the  citizens,  everything  is  forbidden 
or  discouraged  by  authority.  Yet,  as  has  been  said, 
the  people  are  satisfied  with  it,  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  if  it  confines  individual  liberty  within  what  to 
the  Anglo-Saxon  seem  narrow  limits,  still,  by  directing 
the  individual  to  common  ends,  it  works  great  public 
advantage.  It  is  in  truth  a  very  intelligent  and  practical 
form  of  Socialism,  infinitely  less  oppressive  to  the 
people  than  would  be  the  socialism  of  the  professed 
Socialist. 

It  left,  however,  the  German  caste  system  of 
Frederick's  day  undisturbed  ;  as  Professor  Richard 
says:  "The  nobility  retained  its  privileged  position. 
It  was  considered  a  law  of  nature  that  the  noblemen 
should  assist  the  monarch  in  the  administration  of 
the  State  and  as  leaders  of  the  army  ;  the  peasant  should 
cultivate  the  fields  and  provide  food ;  the  commoner 
bhould  provide  money  through  industry  and  commerce." 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  371 

To  the  Anglo-Saxon,  of  course,  brought  up  with 
individualistic  views  of  life  and  demanding  complete 
personal  freedom,  the  German  Rechtstaat  would  be 
galling,  not  to  say  intolerable.  The  Englishman, 
however,  has  his  Rechtstaat  too,  but  the  limits  it  places 
on  his  liberty  are  not  nearly  so  restrictive  in  regard  to 
public  meeting,  public  talking,  public  writing,  in  short, 
public  action  of  all  sorts,  as  in  Germany.  Besides,  the 
spirit  of  laws  in  England,  as  naturally  follows  from  the 
Englishman's  political  history,  is  a  much  more  liberal 
one  than  the  German  spirit,  which  is  still  to  some  extent 
under  the  influence  of  the  age  of  absolutism. 

The  German  conception  of  the  Rechtstaat  entails, 
as  one  of  its  consequences,  a  sharp  contrast  between 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Crown  and  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  people  ;  and  therefore,  while  the 
Emperor  is  never  without  apprehension  that  the  people 
may  try  to  increase  their  rights  and  privileges  at  the 
expense  of  those  of  the  Crown,  the  people  are  not 
without  apprehension  that  the  Crown  may  try  to 
increase  its  rights  and  privileges  at.  the  expense  of 
the  political  liberties  of  the  people.  To  this 
apprehension  on  the  part  of  the  people  is  to  be 
attributed  their  widespread  dissatisfaction  with  the 
Emperor's  so-called  "personal  regiment,"  which,  until 
recently,  was  the  chief  hindrance  to  his  popularity.  In 
truth  the  Emperor  is  in  a  difficult  position.  To  be 
popular  with  the  people  he  must  be  popular  with  the 
Parliament,  but  if  he  were  to  seek  popularity  with  the 
Parliament  he  would  lose  popularity  and  prestige  with 
the  aristocracy  and  large  landowners,  who  have  still 
a  good  deal  of  the  old-time  contempt  for  the  mere  "folk," 
the  burgher,  and  he  would  lose  it  with  the  military 
officer  class,  which  is  aristocratic  in  spirit,  and  is,  as  the 
Emperor  is  constantly  assuring  it,  the  sole  support  of 
throne  and  Empire.  In  addition  to  this  it  has  to  be 


372  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

remembered  that  a  large  majority  of  South  Germany 
is  Catholic,  and,  generally  speaking,  no  great  lover 
of  Prussia,  its  people,  and  their  airs  of  stiff  superiority. 
The  personal  relations  of  the  Emperor  to  his  people, 
and  in  especial  to  the  vast  burghertum,  are  precisely 
those  to  be  expected  from  his  traditional  and  con- 
stitutional relations.  He  is  not  popular,  but  he  is 
widely  and  sincerely  respected.  His  preference  for  the 
army,  intelligible  though  it  is,  and  the  cleavage  that 
separates  Government  and  people,  explain  to  some 
extent  the  want  of  popularity,  using  that  word  in  its 
"  popular "  sense ;  while  the  consciousness  of  all  the 
nation  owes  to  his  "goodwill,"  his  initiative  and  energy, 
his  conscientiousness  in  all  directions,  is  quite  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  respect.  It  is,  in  truth,  in  part  at 
least,  the  respect  which  excludes  the  popularity.  No 
one  is  ever  likely  to  be  popular,  anywhere,  who  is 
constantly  endeavouring  to  teach  people  how  to  live 
and  what  to  think,  and  at  the  same  time  seems  to  have 
no  social  weaknesses  to  reconcile  him  with  those — 
no  small  number — who  are  fond  of  cakes  and  ale. 
Some  of  the  Emperor's  acts  and  speeches  have  postponed, 
if  not  precluded,  eventual  popularity — his  breach  with 
Bismarck,  for  example,  the  whole  "  personal  regiment," 
and  speeches  like  that  at  Potsdam  in  1891,  when  he 
told  his  recruits  that  if  he  had  to  order  them  to  shoot 
down  their  brothers,  or  even  their  parents,  they  must 
obey  without  a  murmur.  Speeches  of  this  last  kind 
live  long  in  public  memory.  In  his  dealings  with  his 
people  the  Emperor  is  neither  arrogant — "high-nosed" 
is  the  elegant  German  expression:  "arrogant"  is  no 
German  word,  Prince  Biilow  would  doubtless  say — 
towards  his  subjects,  nor  are  they  cringing  towards  him, 
though  this  statement  does  not  exclude  the  excusable 
embarrassment  an  ordinary  mortal  may  be  expected 
to  feel  in  the  presence  of  a  monarch.  The  Emperor 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  373 

himself  desires  no  "tail-wagging"  from  his  subjects, 
and  though  there  is  something  of  the  autocrat  in  him, 
there  is  nothing  of  the  despot. 

Certainly  for  the  present,  Germans,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, are  satisfied  with  him.  They  are  prospering 
under  him.  The  shoe  pinches  here  and  there,  and  if 
it  pinches  too  hard  they  will  cry  out  and  perhaps  do  more 
than  cry  out.  They  do  not  consider  the  Emperor 
perfect,  but  they  forgive  his  errors,  and  particularly  the 
errors  of  his  impetuous  youth,  even  though  on  three 
or  four  occasions  they  brought  the  country  into  danger. 
Monarchy  has  been  defined  as  a  State  in  which  the 
attention  of  the  nation  is  concentrated  on  one  person 
doing  interesting  things  :  a  republic,  as  a  State  in  which 
the  attention  is  divided  between  many  who  are  all 
doing  uninteresting  things :  Germans  find  their  Emperor 
interesting,  and  that  is  a  stage  on  the  road  to 
popularity. 

The  imperial  ego,  which  is  quite  consistent  with  the 
German  view  of  monarchical  rule  and  conformity  with 
the  Rechtstaat,  is  specially  advertised  by  the  pictures 
and  statues  of  the  Emperor  which  are  to  be  found  all 
over  Germany,  to  the  apparent  exclusion  of  the  pictures 
and  statues  of  national  and  local  men  of  distinction. 
The  Emperor's  picture  almost  monopolizes  the  walls 
of  every  public  and  municipal  office,  every  railway-station 
refreshment-room,  every  shop,  every  restaurant  through- 
out the  Empire.  Wherever  it  turns  the  eye  is  confronted 
by  the  portrait  or  bust  of  the  Emperor,  and  if  it  is 
not  his  portrait  or  bust,  it  is  the  portrait  or  bust  of  one 
or  other  of  his  ancestors.  An  exception  should  be  made 
in  the  case  of  Bismarck,  the  reproduction  of  whose 
rugged  features,  shaggy  eyebrows,  and  bulky  frame  are 
not  infrequent  ;  statues  and  portraits,  too,  of  Moltke  and 
Roon,  though  much  more  rarely  met  with  than  those 
of  Bismarck,  are  to  be  seen,  while  those  of  Goethe, 


374  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

Schiller,  Kant,  Lessing,  Wagner,  or  other  German 
"  Immortal,"  are  still  rarer.  Only  once,  or  perhaps 
twice,  in  all  Germany  is  there  to  be  found  a  public 
statue  of  Heine — for  Heine  was  a  Jew  and  said  many 
unpleasant,  because  true,  things  about  his  country.  The 
travelling  foreigner  in  Germany  after  a  while  begins 
to  wonder  if  he  is  not  in  some  far  Eastern  country 
where  ancestor-worship  obtains,  and  where  one  tremen- 
dous personality  overshadows,  obscures,  and  obliterates 
all  the  rest.  In  truth,  however,  this  is  not  the  lesson 
of  the  imperial  images  for  the  foreigner.  They  teach 
him  that  he  is  in  a  country  with  a  system  of  government 
and  views  of  the  State  different  from  his  own,  that 
the  Empire  is  ruled  in  a  military,  not  a  civic  spirit, 
and  that  the  counterfeit  presentment  of  the  Emperor, 
always  in  dazzling  uniform,  is  the  sign  of  the  national 
acceptance  of  system,  views,  and  spirit. 

A  similar  lesson  is  taught  by  the  Emperor's  speeches. 
In  England  the  King  rarely  speaks  in  public,  and  then 
with  well-calculated  brevity  and  reserve.  In  five  words 
he  will  open  a  museum  and  with  a  sentence  unveil 
a  monument.  The  Emperor's  speeches  fill  four  stout 
volumes — and  he  is  only  fifty-four.  The  speeches  deal 
with  every  sort  of  topic,  and  have  been  delivered  in  all 
parts  of  the  Empire — now  to  Parliament,  now  to  his 
assembled  generals,  now  at  the  celebration  of  some 
national  or  individual  jubilee,  now  at  the  dedication  of 
a  building  or  the  opening  of  a  bridge.  The  style  is 
always  clear  and  logical,  in  this  respect  contrasting 
favourably  with  the  German  style  of  twenty  years  ago, 
when  the  language  wriggled  from  clause  to  clause  in 
vermiform  articulations  until  the  thought  found  final 
expression  in  a  mob  of  participles  and  infinitives. 
Metaphors  abound  in  the  speeches,  some  of  them  slightly 
far-fetched,  but  others  of  uncommon  beauty,  appropri- 
ateness, and  pith.  There  is  no  brilliant  employment  of 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  375 

words,  but  not  seldom  one  comes  across  such  terse 
and  happy  phrases  as  the  famous  "  We  stand  under 
the  star  of  commerce,"  "  Our  future  lies  on  the  water," 
"  We  demand  a  place  in  the  sun." 

On  the  English  reader  the  speeches  will  be  apt  to  pall, 
unless  he  is  thoroughly  saturated  with  Prussian  historic, 
military,  and  romantic  lore  and  can  place  himself 
mentally  in  the  position  of  the  Emperor.  The  tone, 
never  quite  detached  from  consciousness  of  the  imperial 
ego,  hardly  ever  descends  to  the  level  of  familiar  con- 
versation nor  rises  to  heights  of  eloquence  that  carry  away 
the  hearer.  With  three  or  four  exceptions,  there  is  no 
argumentation  in  the  speeches,  for  they  are  not  meant 
to  persuade  or  convince,  but  to  enjoin  and  command. 
They  do  not  contain  any  of  the  important  and  interesting 
facts  and  figures  of  which,  nevertheless,  the  Emperor's 
mind  must  be  full,  and  they  are  wanting  in  wit  and 
humour,  though  nature  has  endowed  the  Emperor 
with  both. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  remembered  that  they 
are  the  speeches  of  an  Emperor,  not  of  a  statesman. 
The  speeches  have  no  political  timeliness  or  object  save 
that  of  rousing  and  directing  imperial  spirit  among  the 
people  by  appeals  to  their  imagination  and  patriotism. 
Had  the  Emperor  been  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  a 
Minister  or  statesman,  he  would  have  been  far  more 
alive  to  the  fact  than  he  appears  to  have  been,  that 
every  word  he  uttered  would  instantly  find  an  echo  in 
the  Parliament,  Press,  and  Stock  Exchange  of  all  other 
countries. 

The  Emperor's  fundamental  mistakes,  as  disclosed  by 
his  speeches,  appear  to  an  Englishman  to  have  been  in 
assuming  when  they  were  made  that  the  Empire  was  in 
a  less  advanced  stage  of  consolidation  and  settlement  than 
it  in  fact  was,  and  in  underrating  the  intelligence,  know- 
ledge, and  patriotism  of  his  people.  From  this  point  of 


376  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

view  his  early  speeches  in  particular  sound  jejune  or 
superfluous.  What  would  the  Englishman  say  to  a 
king  who  began  his  reign  by  a  series  of  homilies  on 
Alfred  the  Great  or  Elizabeth  or  Queen  Victoria  ;  by 
using  strong  language  about  the  Labour  party  or  the 
Fabian  Society  ;  by  appeals  to  throne  and  altar  ;  by 
describing  to  Parliament  the  chief  duties  of  the  monarch  ; 
by  recommending  the  London  County  Council  to  build 
plenty  of  churches;  by  calling  journalists  "hunger- 
candidates  "  ;  by  frequent  references  to  the  battles  of 
Waterloo  and  Trafalgar  ?  Yet,  mutatis  mutandis,  this  is 
not  so  very  unlike  what  the  young  Emperor  did,  and  not 
for  a  year  or  two,  but  for  several  years  after  his  accession. 
To  an  Englishman  such  addresses  would  appear  rather 
ill-timed  academic  declamation. 

Yet  there  was  much,  and  perhaps  is  still  much,  to 
account  for,  if  not  quite  justify,  the  Emperor's  rhetoric. 
The  peculiarity  of  Germany's  monarchic  system  placed, 
and  places,  the  monarch  in  a  patriarchal  position  not  very 
different  from  that  of  Moses  towards  the  Israelites — a 
leader,  preacher,  and  prophet.  Again,  the  Empire,  when 
the  Emperor  came  to  the  throne,  was  not  a  homogeneous 
nation  inspired  by  a  centuries-old  national  spirit,  but 
suffered,  as  it  still  in  a  measure  suffers,  from  the  particu- 
larism of  the  various  kingdoms  and  States  composing  it : 
in  other  words,  from  too  local  a  patriotism  and  stagna- 
tion of  the  imperial  idea.  Thirdly,  the  Empire  had  no 
navy,  while  an  Empire  to-day  without  a  navy  is  at  a 
tremendous  and  dangerous  disadvantage  in  world- 
politics,  and  the  mere  conception  that  a  navy  was  in- 
dispensable had  to  be  created  in  a  country  lying  in  the 
heart  of  Europe  and  with  only  one  short  coast-line. 

The  Englishman  is  as  loyal  to  his  King  as  the  German 
is  to  his  Emperor,  and  England,  as  little  as  Germany,  is 
disposed  to  change  from  monarchy  to  republicanism. 
But  the  Englishman's  political  and  social  governor, 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  377 

guide,  and  executive  is  not  the  King,  but  the  Parliament  ; 
because  while  in  the  King  he  has  a  worthy  representative 
of  the  nation's  historical  development  and  dignity,  in  the 
Parliament  he  sees  a  powerful  and  immediate  reflection 
of  himself,  his  own  wishes,  and  his  own  judgments. 
Moreover,  with  the  spread  of  democratic  ideas,  the 
position  of  a  monarch  anywhere  in  the  civilized  world 
to-day  is  not  what  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  The  general 
progress  in  education  since  then  ;  the  drawing  together 
of  the  nations  by  common  commercial  and  financial 
interests  ;  the  incessant  activity  of  writers  and  publishers  ; 
the  circulation  and  power  of  the  Press — themselves 
almost  threatening  to  become  a  despotism — such  facts 
as  these  tend  to  change  the  relations  between  kings 
and  peoples.  Monarchs  and  men  are  changing  places  ; 
the  ruler  becomes  the  subject,  the  subject  ruler  ;  it  is 
the  people  who  govern,  and  the  monarch  obeys  the 
people's  will. 

Such  is  not  the  view  of  the  German  Emperor  nor  of 
the  German  people.  To  both  the  monarch  is  no  "shadow- 
king,"  as  both  are  fond  of  calling  the  King  of  England, 
but  an  Emperor  of  flesh  and  blood,  commissioned  to 
take  the  leading  part  in  decisions  binding  on  the  nation, 
responsible  to  no  one  but  the  Almighty,  and  the  sole 
bestower  of  State  honours.  There  are,  it  is  true,  three 
factors  of  imperial  government  constitutionally — the 
Emperor,  the  Federal  Council,  and  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  while  the  Council  has  only  very  indirect 
relations  with  the  people,  the  Parliament,  a  consultative 
body  for  legislation,  is  not  the  depositary  of  power  or 
authority,  or  an  assembly  to  which  either  the  Emperor, 
or  the  Council,  or  the  Imperial  Chancellor  is  responsible. 
It  must  be  admitted  that,  while  such  is  the  constitutional 
theory,  the  actual  practice  is  to  a  considerable  extent 
different.  The  Emperor  is  no  absolute  monarch,  even 
in  the  domain  of  foreign  affairs,  as  he  is  often  said  to  be, 


378  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

but  is  influenced  and  guided,  certainly  of  late  years,  both 
by  the  Federal  Council  and  by  public  opinion,  the  power 
of  which  latter  has  greatly  augmented  in  recent  times. 
Whether  the  Reichstag  really  represents  public  opinion 
in  the  Empire  is  a  moot-point  in  Germany  itself.  It  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  it  does  so,  at  least  in  financial 
matters,  since  with  regard  to  them  it  has  all  the  powers, 
or  almost  all,  possessed  by  the  English  House  of 
Commons  in  this  respect.  Where  its  powers  fail,  it  is 
said,  is  in  regard  to  administration  ;  for  though  it  delibe- 
rates on  and  passes  legislation,  it  is  left  by  the  Constitution 
to  the  Emperor  and  his  Ministers  to  issue  instructions  as 
to  how  legislation  is  to  be  carried  into  effect.  The  result 
is  to  throw  excessive  power  over  public  comfort  and  con- 
venience into  the  hands  of  the  official  class  of  all  degrees, 
which  naturally  employs  it  to  maintain  its  own  dignity 
and  privileged  position. 

Towards  one  class  of  the  population,  and  that  a  highly 
important  and  exceptional  one,  the  Emperor's  attitude  of 
unprejudiced  goodwill  has  never  varied.  Israelites  form 
only  a  small  proportion — about  I  per  cent. — of  the  whole 
people,  and  are  to  be  found  in  very  large  numbers  only 
in  Berlin  and  Frankfurt ;  but  to  their  financial  and  com- 
mercial ability  Germany  owes  a  debt  one  may  almost 
describe  as  incalculable.  There  is  a  strong  national 
prejudice  against  them  in  all  parts  of  the  Empire,  as 
there  probably  is  in  all  countries,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  lower- 
class  Jew,  his  unpleasant  and  insistent  curiosity,  his  in- 
trusiveness  where  he  is  not  desired,  his  want  of  cleanliness, 
his  sharpness  at  a  bargain,  his  oily  bearing  to  those  he 
wishes  to  propitiate  and  his  ruthless  sweating  of  the 
worker  in  all  fields  when  in  his  power,  are  all  disagree- 
able personal  qualities.  There  is  also,  as  a  concomitant 
of  the  nation's  growth  in  wealth  of  every  sort,  and 
mostly  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  capital  a  class  of 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  379 

Jewish  parvenu,  remarkable  for  snobbishness,  ostentation, 
and  affectation. 

But  one  must  distinguish  ;  and  of  a  large  percentage 
of  the  educated  class  of  Jew  in  Germany  it  would  be 
difficult  to  speak  too  highly.  Germans  may  be  the  "  salt 
of  the  earth,"  as  the  Emperor  once  told  them  they  were, 
but  Jewish  talent  can  with  quite  as  much,  perhaps  more, 
justice  be  called  the  salt  of  German  prosperity.  And  not 
alone  in  the  region  of  finance  and  commerce.  Some  of 
the  best  intellect,  most  of  the  leading  enterprise  in  Ger- 
many, in  all  important  directions,  is  Jewish.  Many  of 
her  ablest  newspaper  proprietors  and  editors  are  Jews. 
Many  of  her  finest  actors  and  actresses  are  Jews  and 
Jewesses.  Many  of  her  cleverest  lawyers,  doctors,  and 
artists  are  Jews.  The  career  of  Herr  Albert  Ballin,  the 
Jewish  director  of  the  Hamburg-Amerika  line,  the  Em- 
peror's friend,  to  whom  Germany  owes  a  great  deal  of 
her  mercantile  marine  expansion,  is  a  long  romance 
illustrative  of  Jewish  organizing  power  and  success. 

The  Emperor's  friendship  for  Herr  Ballin  is  obviously 
not  entirely  disinterested,  but  the  interest  at  the  root  of 
it  is  an  imperial  one.  In  this  spirit  he  cultivates  to-day, 
as  he  has  done  since  he  took  over  the  Empire,  the  society 
of  all  his  subjects,  German  or  Jew,  who  either  by  their 
talents  or  through  their  wealth  can  contribute  to  the 
success  of  the  mighty  task  which  occupies  his  waking 
thoughts,  and  for  all  one  knows,  his  sleeping  thoughts 
— his  dreams — as  well.  Accordingly,  the  wealthy  German 
is  quite  aware  that  if  he  is  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
Emperor's  friends  he  must  be  prepared  to  pay  for  the 
privilege,  since  the  Emperor  is  neither  slow  nor  shy 
about  using  his  influence  in  order  to  make  the  more 
fortunate  members  of  the  community  put  their  hands 
deeply  into  their  pockets  for  national  purposes.  A  little 
time  ago  he  invited  a  number  of  merchant  princes  and 
captains  of  industry,  as  American  papers  invariably  call 


380  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

wealthy  Germans,  to  a  Bier-abend  at  the  palace.  When 
the  score  or  so  of  guests  were  seated,  he  announced  that 
he  was  collecting  subscriptions  for  some  public  object — 
the  national  airship  fund,  perhaps — and  sent  a  sheet  of 
paper  to  Herr  Friedlander  Fuld,  the  "  coal-king "  of 
Germany,  to  head  the  list.  Herr  Fuld  wrote  down 
.£5,000,  and  the  paper  was  taken  back  to  the  Emperor. 
"  Oh,  this  will  never  do,  lieber  Fuld,"  he  exclaimed,  on 
seeing  the  amount.  "  At  this  rate  people  will  be  putting 
down  their  names  for  ^50.  You  must  at  least  double 
it."  And  Herr  Fuld  had  to  do  so.  A  few  weeks  after- 
wards there  was  another  invitation  to  the  palace,  and  the 
same  sort  of  scene  took  place.  A  little  later  still  Herr 
Fuld  got  a  third  invitation,  and  as  an  imperial  invitation 
is  equivalent  to  a  command,  he  had  to  go.  When  he 
arrived  he  noticed  his  fellow-industrials  looking  uneasy, 
not  to  say  sad.  The  Emperor  noticed  it  too,  for  his  first 
words  were :  "  Dear  gentlemen,  to-night  the  beer  costs 
nothing." 

Throughout  the  reign  Germany  has  made  it  her  con- 
stant policy  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with  the  United 
States.  Chancellor  von  Biilow,  in  1899,  apropos  of  Samoa, 
said  in  the  Reichstag :  "  We  can  confidently  say  that  in 
no  other  country  has  America  during  the  last  hundred 
years  found  better  understanding  and  more  just  recog- 
nition than  in  Germany."  This  is  true  of  the  educated 
classes,  professional,  professorial,  and  scientific;  but  the 
ordinary  European  German,  who  does  not  know  and 
understand  America,  still  displays  no  particular  love  for 
the  ordinary  American.  At  the  same  time  he  probably 
prefers  him  to  the  people  of  any  other  nation.  American 
outspokenness  in  politics,  for  example,  must  be  refreshing 
to  minds  penned  within  the  limits  of  the  Rechtstaat.  He 
sees  in  them,  too,  millionaires,  or  at  least  people  who 
come  from  a  country  where  money  is  so  abundant  that, 
as  many  country-people  still  think,  you  have  only  to 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  381 

stoop  to  pick  it  up.  When  it  comes  to  business,  how- 
ever, he  is  a  little  afraid  of  their  somewhat  too  sanguine 
enterprise,  and  is  given  to  suspect  that  a  "  bluff  "  of  some 
sort  is  behind  the  simplest  business  proposition.  Much 
of  this,  of  course,  is  due  to  ignorance  heightened  by 
yellow  journalism,  for  as  a  rule  only  the  vastly  interest- 
ing, but  mostly  untrue,  "  stories "  regarding  Germany 
printed  in  the  yellow  press  come  back  to  the  Fatherland. 
The  German,  again,  is  made  uneasy  by  what  he  thinks 
the  hasty  manners  of  the  Americans ;  he  considers  them 
uncivil.  So,  let  it  be  admitted,  they  sometimes  appear  to 
be  to  people  of  other  nationalities  ;  but  then  as  a  rule 
Americans  who  jar  on  European  nerves  will  be  found  to 
hail  from  places  where  life,  to  use  the  American  expres- 
sion, is  "  woolly,"  or  too  strenuous  to  allow  of  the  deli- 
cacies of  real  refinement.  The  ordinary  idea  of  the 
German  in  Germany,  held  by  the  stay-at-home  American, 
is  a  vague  species  of  dislike,  founded  on  the  conviction 
that  the  American,  not  the  German,  is  the  salt  of  the 
earth  ;  that  the  German  regard  for  tradition  makes  them 
a  slow  and  slowly  moving  race  ;  and  that  the  Emperor  as 
War  Lord — for  he  is  almost  solely  known  to  him  in  that 
capacity — must  be  ever  desirous  of  war,  in  particular 
wishes  to  seize  a  coaling-station  or  even  a  country,  in 
South  America,  and,  generally  speaking,  set  at  naught 
the  Monroe  doctrine.  The  Governments  on  both  sides, 
of  course,  know  and  understand  each  other  better.  In 
November,  1906,  Prince  Biilow  publicly  thanked  America 
for  her  attitude  at  Algeciras,  implying  that  it  was  due  to  her 
representative's  conciliatory  and  reconciliatory  conduct 
that  the  Conference  did  not  end  in  a  fiasco.  "This," 
said  the  Chancellor,  "  was  the  second  great  service  to  the 
world  rendered  by  America  ;  the  other,"  he  added,  "being 
the  bringing  about  of  peace  between  Russia  and  Japan." 

A  great  deal  of  the  increased  intercourse  between  the 
two  countries  is  due  to  the  personal  endeavours  of  the 


382  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

Emperor.  What  his  motives  are  may  be  conjectured 
with  fair  accuracy  from  a  general  knowledge  of  his  "  up- 
to-date  "  character,  the  commercial  policy  of  his  Empire, 
and  the  events  of  recent  years.  He  has  a  whole-hearted 
admiration  for  the  American  character  and  genius,  so 
akin  in  many  ways  to  his  own  character  and  genius  ;  and 
if  he  refuses  to  recommend  for  Germans  similar  institu- 
tions to  those  in  States,  federated  in  a  manner  some- 
what analogous  to  that  of  the  kingdoms  and  States 
composing  his  own  Empire,  it  is  not  from  want  of 
liberality  of  mind,  but  because  they  are  wholly  opposed 
to  Prussian  tradition,  because  his  people  do  not  demand 
them,  and  because  he  honestly  believes  that  in  respect  of 
topographical  situation,  climate,  historical  development, 
and  race  feelings  and  sentiment,  the  safeguards  and 
requirements  of  Germany  are  widely  different  from  those 
of  America. 

As  a  young  man  he  naturally  had  very  little  to  do  with 
America  or  Americans,  though  among  his  schoolboy 
playmates  was  a  young  American,  Poulteney  Bigelow, 
who  afterwards  wrote  an  excellent  appreciation  of  the 
fine  traits  in  the  Emperor's  character.  At  the  same 
time  the  Emperor  himself  has  stated  that  the  country 
always  interested  him,  and  recent  visitors  bear  out  the 
statement  fully.  In  1889,  a  year  after  his  accession, 
he  expressed  his  admiration  for  America,  when  re- 
ceiving the  American  Ambassador,  Mr.  Phelps.  "  From 
my  youth  on,"  the  Emperor  said,  "  I  have  had  a 
great  admiration  for  that  powerful  and  progressive 
commonwealth  which  you  are  called  on  to  represent, 
and  the  study  of  its  history  in  peace  and  war  has 
had  for  me  at  all  times  a  special  interest.  Among 
the  many  distinguished  characteristics  of  your  people, 
which  draw  to  them  the  attention  of  the  whole  world, 
are  their  enterprising  spirit,  their  love  of  order,  and  their 
talent  for  invention.  The  predominant  sentiment  of  both 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  383 

peoples  is  that  of  affinity  and  tested  friendship,  and  the 
future  can  only  strengthen  the  heartiness  of  their  rela- 
tions." More  than  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
words  were  uttered,  and  the  prediction  has  been  fulfilled. 
Scores  of  anecdotes,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  are  current 
in  connexion  with  the  Emperor  and  American  friends. 
One  of  them  is  that  of  an  American,  Mr.  Frank  Wyberg, 
the  husband  of  a  lady  who,  with  her  children,  used  often 
to  visit  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Armour  on  their  yacht  Uttowana 
at  Kiel,  there  met  the  Emperor,  and  was  invariably 
kindly  greeted  by  him.  Mr.  Wyberg  was  summoned 
with  his  friend,  General  Miles,  to  an  audience  of  the 
Emperor  in  Berlin.  Before  going  to  the  palace 
Mr.  Wyberg  went  to  a  well-known  picture-dealer  in  the 
city  and  bought  a  small  but  artistic  painting  costing 
about  .£1,000.  He  had  the  picture  neatly  done  up,  and 
carried  it  off  under  his  arm  to  the  hotel  where  he  was  to 
meet  General  Miles.  As  they  were  leaving  for  the  palace 
the  General  asked  Mr.  Wyberg  what  he  was  carrying. 
"  Oh,  only  a  trifle  for  the  Kaiser  !  "  was  the  reply.  The 
General  was  horrified,  and  tried  to  dissuade  his  friend 
from  bringing  the  picture,  telling  him  that  the  proper 
procedure  was  to  ask  through  the  Foreign  Office  or  the 
American  Embassy  for  the  Emperor's  gracious  acceptance 
of  it.  Otherwise  the  Emperor  would  be  annoyed,  he 
would  think  badly  of  American  manners,  and  so  on. 
Mr.  Wyberg,  however,  was  not  to  be  deterred,  and  insisted 
that  it  would  be  "  all  right."  \Vhile  waiting  in  the  recep- 
tion-room for  the  Emperor,  Mr.  Wyberg  unwrapped  the 
picture  and  placed  it  leaning  against  the  wall  on  a  piano. 
By  and  by  the  Emperor  came  in,  and  almost  the  first 
thing  he  said,  after  shaking  hands,  was  to  ask  what  the 
presence  of  the  picture  meant.  Mr.  Wyberg  explained 
that  it  was  a  mark  of  gratitude  for  the  kindness  the 
Emperor  had  shown  his  wife  and  children  at  Kiel.  The 
Emperor  smiled,  said  it  was  a  very  kind  thought,  and 


384  WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

willingly  accepted  the  gift.  The  story  has  a  sequel.  A 
day  or  two  after  a  Court  official  called  at  the  hotel,  to 
get  from  General  Miles  Mr.  Wyberg's  initials,  and  after 
another  few  days  had  passed  reappeared  with  a  bulky 
parcel.  On  being  opened  the  parcel  was  found  to  consist 
of  a  large  silver  loving-cup,  with  Mr.  Wyberg's  name 
chased  upon  it,  and  underneath  the  words,  "  From 
Wilhelm  II." 

Another  anecdote  refers  to  an  American  naval  attache, 
a  favourite  of  the  Emperor's.  Dinner  at  the  palace 
was  over,  and  the  attache,  wishing  to  keep  a  memento 
of  the  occasion,  took  his  large  menu  card  and  concealed 
it,  as  he  thought,  between  his  waistcoat  and  his  shirt. 
Unfortunately,  when  taking  leave  of  the  Emperor,  the 
card  slipped  down  and  part  of  it  became  visible.  The 
Emperor's  quick  eye  immediately  noticed  it.  "  Hallo  ! 

H ,"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  look  out,  your  dickey's  coming 

down  !"  The  story  shows  the  Emperor's  acquaintance 
with  English  slang  as  well  as  his  geniality. 

The  Emperor  seems  to  take  pleasure  in  displaying 
himself  to  Americans  in  as  republican  a  light  as  possible, 
and  when  he  desires  the  company  of  an  American  friend, 
stands  on  no  sort  of  ceremony.  The  American's 
telephone  bell  may  ring  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or 
evening,  and  a  voice  is  heard — "  Here  royal  palace. 
His  Majesty  wishes  to  ask  if  the  Herr  So-and-So  will 
come  to  the  palace  this  evening  for  dinner."  On  one 
occasion  this  happened  to  Professor  Burgess.  The 
telephone  at  the  Hotel  Adlon  in  Berlin  rang  up  from 
Potsdam  about  six  in  the  afternoon,  and  there  was  so 
little  time  for  the  Professor  to  catch  his  train  that  he  was 
forced  to  finish  his  dressing  en  route.  Or  the  invitation 
may  be  for  "  a  glass  of  beer "  after  dinner,  about  nine 
o'clock. 

If  it  is  a  dinner  invitation,  the  guest,  in  evening  clothes, 
with  his  white  tie  doubtless  a  trifle  more  carefully 


THE    EMPEROR   TO-DAY  385 

adjusted  than  usual,  drives  or  walks  to  the  palace.     He 
enters  a   gate   on    the   south   side  facing   the   statue  of 
Frederick   the   Great,   and   under   the   archway   finds   a 
doorway  with   a   staircase    leading   immediately  to   the 
royal  apartments  on  the  first  floor.     In  an   ante-room 
are    other    guests,   a    couple    of    Ministers,   the    Rector 
Magnificus  of  the  university,  and  perhaps  a  "  Roosevelt " 
or  "  exchange "  professor ;  and  if  the  party  is  not  one 
of  men  only,  such  as  the  Emperor  is  fond  of  arranging, 
and  the  Empress  is  expected,  the  wives  also  of  the  invited 
guests.     Without  previous  notice   the   Emperor  enters, 
an  American  lover  of  slang  might  almost  say  "blows  in," 
with  quick  steps  and  a  bustling  air  that  instantly  fills  the 
room  with  life  and  energy,  and  showing  a  cheery  smile 
of  welcome  on  his  face.    The  guests  are  standing  round 
in  a  half  or  three-quarter  circle,  and  the  Emperor  goes 
from  one   to  the   other,  shaking   hands   and  delivering 
himself  of  a  sentence  or  two,  either  in  the  form  of  a 
question    or    remark,   and    then   passing   on.     When   it 
is  not  a  bachelors'  party,  the  Empress  comes  in  later 
with  her  ladies.     A  servant  in  the  royal  livery  of  red  and 
gold,  on  a  signal  from  the  Emperor,  throws  open  a  door 
leading    to    the    dining-room,    and    the    Emperor   and 
Empress  enter  first.    The  guests  take  their  places  accord- 
ing to  the  cards  on  the  table.     If  it  is  a  men's  party  of, 
say,  four  guests,  the  Emperor  will  seat  them  on  his  right 
and   left   and    immediately   opposite,   with   an   adjutant 
or  two  as  makeweights  and  in  case  he  should  want  to 
send  for  plans   or   books.     On    these   occasions  he   is 
usually  in  the  dark  blue  uniform  of  a  Prussian  infantry 
general,  with   an   order   or   two   blazing  on  his   breast. 
He   sits  very  upright,  and   starts   and  keeps  going   the 
conversation  with  such  skill  and  verve  that  soon  every 
one,  even  the  shyest,  is  drawn  into  it.     There  is  plenty 
of  argument  and  divergence  of  view.     If  the  Emperor 
is  convinced  that  he  is  right,  he  will,  as  has  more  than 
eg 


386  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

once  occurred,  jestingly  offer  to  back  his  opinion  with 
a  wager.     "  I'll  bet  you  " — he  will  exclaim,  with  all  the 
energy  of  an  English  schoolboy.     He  enjoys  a  joke  or 
witticism  immensely,  and  leans  back  in  his  chair  as  he 
joins  in  the  hearty   peal   about  him.      When  cigars  or 
cigarettes  are  handed  round,  he  will  take  an  occasional 
puff   at  one  of   the   three  or  four  cigarettes  he   allows 
himself  during  the  evening,  or  sip  at  a  glass  of  orangeade 
placed  before  him  and  filled  from  time  to  time.     When 
he  feels   disposed   he   rises,  and   having   shaken  'hands 
with  his  guests,  now  standing  about  him,  retires  into  his 
workroom.     A  few  moments  later  the  guests  disperse. 
Conversation,  both  in  England  and  Germany,  some- 
times turns  on  the  question  whether  or  not  the  Emperor 
will  be  known   to  future  generations  as  William  "the 
Great."     It  is  agreed  on  all  sides  that  he  will  not  take 
a  place  among  the  mediocrities  or  sink  into  oblivion. 
We    have,  though   only   negatively  and    indirectly,   his 
own  view  of  the  matter,  if,  that  is,  it  may  be  deduced 
from  the  fact  that  he  has  more  than  once  tried  to  attach 
this  epitheton  ornans  to  the  memory  of  his  grandfather. 
At  Hamburg  in  1891  he  desired  a  statue- to  the  Emperor 
William  I  to  bear  the  inscription  "William  the  Great." 
The  cool  common   sense  of   the  cautious  Hamburgers 
refused  to  anticipate  the  decision  of  posterity  and  placed 
on  the  pedestal  the  simple  words  "William  the  First." 
In    deference   to   the    Emperor's  well-known   wishes,  if 
not  at  his  request,  the  Hamburg-Amerika  line  of  steamers 
christened  one  of  their  ocean  greyhounds    Wilhelm  der 
Grosse.     The  mere  fact  that  people  discuss  the  question 
in    his   lifetime   is   of   happy  augury  for   the    Emperor. 
Perhaps    some    other    epithet    will    be   found   for   him. 
"  Puffing   Billy "   is   one   of    his    titles    among    English 
officers,  taken  from  the  name  given  locally  to  Stephen- 
son's    first    locomotive.     But    history   has    many   ranks 
in  her  peerage  and  many  epithets  at  her  disposal — great, 


THE    EMPEROR  TO-DAY  387 

good,  fair,  lionhearted,  silent — that  the  Emperor  will 
not  have — and  a  host  more.  Maybe  the  greatest  rulers 
were  those  whom  history,  as  though  in  despair  of  finding 
a  single  term  with  which  to  do  them  justice,  has  refrained 
from  decorating.  Timur,  Akbar,  Attila,  Julius  Caesar, 
Elizabeth,  Victoria,  Napoleon  have  no  epithets,  and 
need  none.  However,  it  is  clear  that  a  verdict  on  the 
Emperor's  deserts  is  premature.  Suppose  him  at  the 
bar  of  history.  The  case  is  still  proceeding,  the  evidence 
is  not  complete,  counsel  have  not  been  heard,  and — most 
obvious  defect  of  any — the  jury  has  not  been  im- 
panelled. 

More  than  half  a  century  has  passed  since  the  Emperor 
was  born.  How  time  flies  ! 

"  Alas,  alas,  O  Posturaus,  Postumus, 
The  years  glide  by  and  are  lost  to  us,  lost  to  us." 

But  not  the  memories  they  enshrine.  It  is,  let  us 
imagine,  the  night  of  the  Emperor's  Jubilee,  and  he  lies 
in  the  old  Schloss,  still  awake,  reflecting  on  the  past. 
What  a  multitude  of  happenings,  gay  and  grave,  throng 
to  his  recollection,  what  a  glorious  and  crowded  canvas 
unrolls  itself  before  his  mental  vision  !  The  toy  steamer 
on  the  Havel ;  the  games  in  the  palace  corridors,  with  the 
grim  features  of  the  Great  Elector  betrayed,  one  is  tempted 
to  think,  into  a  half-smile  as  he  watches  the  innocent 
gaiety  of  the  romping  children  from  the  old  wainscoted 
walls ;  the  irksome  but  disciplinary  hours  in  the  Cassel 
schoolroom ;  the  youthful  escapades  with  those  care- 
free Borussian  comrades  at  the  university  on  the  broad 
bosom  of  Father  Rhine ;  the  excursions  and  picnics 
among  the  Seven  Hills ;  the  visits  to  England,  its 
crowded  and  bustling  capital,  its  country  seats  with  their 
pleasant  lawns  and  stately  oaks  ;  the  war-ships  in  the 
Solent,  with  their  black  mass  and  frowning  guns,  as 
they  towered,  like  Milton's  Leviathan,  above  his  head. 


388  WILLIAM    OF   GERMANY 

What  a  good  time  it  was,  and  how  rich  in  manifold  and 
picturesque  impressions  ! 

The  canvas  continues  to  unroll  and  a  literary  period 
opens — that  age  between  youth  and  manhood,  of  all 
ages  most  passionate  and  ideal,  when  we  are  enthralled 
and  moved  by  what  we  read — by  those  studies  which 
"  adolescentiam  agunt,  senectutem  oblectant,  secundas  res 
ornant,  adversis  perfugium  ac  solatium  prcebent,  delectant 
domi,  non  impediunt  foris;  pernoctant  nobiscum,  pere- 
grinantur,  rusticantur."  It  was  the  Lohengrin  period, 
when,  filled  with  the  ardour  and  imaginativeness  of  high- 
souled  youth,  the  future  Emperor  was  dimly  thinking  of 
all  he  would  do  in  the  days  to  come  for  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  of  his  people,  nay,  of  all  mankind. 

Another  tableau  presents  itself.  Life  has  now  become 
real  and  the  Emperor's  soldiering  days  have  begun — 
never  to  conclude  !  His  regiment  is  his  world  ;  parades 
and  drills,  the  orderly-room  and  the  barrack  square 
occupy  his  time ;  and  would  seem  monotonous  and 
hard  but  for  the  little  Eden  with  its  Eve  close  beside 
them. 

The  Emperor  turns  uneasily,  for  his  thoughts  recur  to 
the  painful  circumstances  of  his  accession  ;  but  calmness 
soon  succeeds  as  the  curtain  rises  on  the  splendid 
panorama  of  the  reign.  He  sees  himself,  a  young  and 
hitherto  unknown  actor,  leaving  the  wings  and  taking 
the  very  centre  of  the  stage,  while  the  vast  audience  sits 
silent  and  attentive,  as  yet  hardly  grasping  the  significance 
of  his  words  and  gestures,  emphatic  though  they  are. 
And  then  he  recalls  the  years  of  Sturm  und  Drang,  the 
growth  of  Empire  in  spite  of  grudging  rivals  and  of 
fellow-countrymen  as  yet  not  wholly  conscious  of  their 
destinies,  which  one  can  now  see  constituted  a  whole 
drama  in  themselves,  fraught  with  great  consequences  to 
the  world. 

But   we  are   keeping   the   Emperor   awake   when   he 


THE    EMPEROR  TO-DAY  389 

should  be  left  to  well-deserved  repose.  He  has  doubtless 
half  forgotten  it  all  ;  the  Bismarck  episode  is  one  of 
those 

"...  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things 
And  battles  long  ago  " 

of  which  the  poet  sings.  One  unquiet  political  care 
excepted,  all  the  rest  must  be  pleasant  for  him  to 
remember — the  rising  with  the  dawn,  the  hurried  little 
breakfast  with  the  Empress,  the  pawing  horses  of  the 
adjutants  and  escort  in  the  courtyard  of  the  palace  ;  the 
constant  travelling  in  and  far  beyond  the  Empire  ;  the 
incessant  speech-making,  with  its  appeals  to  the  past  and 
its  promises,  nobly  realized,  of  "splendid  days"  in  the 
future — its  calls  to  the  people  to  arms,  to  the  sea,  to  the 
workshop,  to  school,  to  church,  to  anything  praiseworthy, 
provided  only  it  was  action  for  the  common  good  ;  the 
dockyards  -in  Kiel  and  Danzig,  with  their  noise  of 
"  busy  hammers  closing  rivets  up " ;  the  ever-swelling 
trade  statistics  ;  and  the  proud  feeling  that  at  last  his 
country  was  coming  into  her  own. 

Even  the  sensation  the  Emperor  caused  from  time  to 
time  in  other  countries  must  have  had  a  certain  charm 
for  him — endless  telegrams,  endless  scathing  editorials, 
endless  movement  and  excitement.  There  is  no  fun  like 
work,  they  say.  The  Emperor  worked  hard  and  enjoyed 
working.  It  was  the  "  personal  regiment,"  maybe,  and 
it  could  not  last  for  ever  ;  but  while  it  did  it  was  doubt- 
less very  gratifying,  and,  notwithstanding  all  his  critics 
say,  magnificently  successful. 

Those  strenuous  times  are  long  over,  and  if  strenuous 
times  have  yet  to  come  they  will  find  the  Emperor  alert 
and  knowing  better  how  to  deal  with  them.  He  has, 
one  may  be  sure,  no  thoughts  of  well-earned  rest  or 
dignified  repose — he  probably  never  will,  with  his 
strong  conception  of  duty  and  his  interest  in  the  fortunes 


390          WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 

of  his  Empire.  Still,  he  is  a  good  deal  changed.  Time 
has  taught  him  more  than  his  early  tutor,  worthy  Dr. 
Hinzpeter,  ever  taught  him ;  and  if  his  spring  was 
boisterous,  and  his  summer  gusty  and  uncertain,  a 
mellow  autumn  gives  promise  of  a  hale  and  kindly 
winter. 


INDEX 


Abdul  Aziz,  259 

Absolutism,  2,  295,  368  scq. 

Accession,  date,  i  ;  period,  69  seq. 

Achilleion,  317 

Aegir,  Song  to,  224 

Agadir,  264  seq. 

Alexandra,  Queen,  327 

Algeciras  Conference,  261  seq. ; 
Act  of,  262 

Alsace-Lorraine,  84  seq. 

America,  art  exhibition,  222 ;  Ger- 
many and,  238  ;  Frederick  the 
Great  and,  242 ;  squadron  at 
Kiel,  244  ;  commercial  relations 
with,  331,  380  seq. 

Anarchism,  42  seq. 

Anglo-French  Agreement,  1904, 
259  seq. 

Anglo-German  Agreement,  1890, 
140 ;  1904,  335  ;  relations,  4-7, 
243,  282,  335  seq. 

Anglo-Japanese  Agreement,  201 

Anti-Semites,  178 

Arbitration,  compulsory,  340 

Aristocracy,  German,  114 

Armament,  limitation  of,  340 

Army,  accession  speech  to,  69 ; 
importance  of,  71  ;  true  charac- 
ter of,  285  ;  Emperor  and,  294 

Art,  Emperor  on,  202,  205  seq. ; 
speech  to  sculptors,  207  ;  Ger- 
man ideals,  218 


Attempt  on  Emperor,  202  ;  on 
William  I,  42 

Augusta,  Empress,  wife  of  Wil- 
liam I,  43,  45 

Auguste,  Victoria,  present  Em- 
press, 37  seq. 

"  Babel  und  Bibel,"  246 

Baghdad  railway,  200 

Balkans,  339 

Ballin,  367 

Battenberg  affair,  55 

Bebel,  August,  58,  90,  359.  See 
Social  Democracy 

Bennigsen,  von,  13 

Berlin  palace  (Schloss),  1 14 

Bethmann  Hollweg,i322  seq. 

Biedermeier  time,  167 

Bismarck,  13  ;  Empress  Fred,  and, 
44  ;  William  I  and,  43  seq. ;  on 
Divine  Right,  60  seq. ;  on  foreign 
policy,  76 ;  resignation,  104, 133 ; 
Emperor  and,  49,  131 ;  "  blood 
and  iron "  speech,  128 ;  Em- 
peror's account  of  quarrel  with, 
135  ;  journey  to  Vienna,  141  ; 
death,  143 

"  Bloc"  party,  281,  288,  322 

Boer  war,  German  policy  and, 
156,  303 

Bonn,  Emperor  at,  29 ;  address  at, 
203 


391 


392 


WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 


Borussia,  30,  36,  203 

Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  329 

Boulanger,  52,  76 

Boxer  troubles,  46,  194  seq. 

Brandon, 338 

"  Brilliant  second  "  speech,  279 

Brooks,  Sydney,  361 

Billow,  Prince  von,  47  ;  succeeds 

Hohenlohe,    187  ;    fainting   fit, 

322 ;   resignation,  322 
Burgess,  Prof.,  241 
Butler,     Dr.    Nicholas     Murray, 

272 
Byzantinism,  121  seq. 

Cadinen,  334 

Camarilla,  277 

Caprivi,  von,  141 ;  treaties,  141, 
152  seq. ;  chancellorship,  151 

Caroline  Islands,  151 

Casablanca,  264 

Centrum,  3,  280 

Chamberlain,  Mr.,  158,  258 

Chamberlain,  Stewart,  348 

Chancellor,  "responsibility,"  289 
seq. 

China,  relations  with,  193  ;  Boxer 
indemnity,  197 

Chun,  Prince,  197  seq. 

Churchill,  Winston,  337 

Colonial  development,  148  seq. 

Commercial  treaties,  152  ;  Ameri- 
can, 331 

Conscription,  191 

Constitution,  German  and  British 
compared,  57 

Corps,  student,  30  seq* 

Crefeld,  278 

Crown  Prince,  14,  18;  income, 
112 ;  marriage,  270 ;  Indian  tour, 
328 ;  at  English  coronation,  339 ; 
in  aeroplane,  359 


Court,  comparison  with  English, 

109 ;  nobility,  113 
Cowes,   75 

Daily  Telegraph,  interview,  302 
seq. ;  text  of,  304  ;  Bulow  and, 
311  seq. ;  Emperor's  undertak- 
ing, 310 

Delcasse,  261,  282 

Delitzsch,  Prof.,  246 

Dewey,  Admiral,  170 

Dictator  Paragraph,  86 

Diedrich,  Admiral,  170 

Dingley  tariff,  331 

Disarmament,  317 

Divine  Right,  331  seq. 

Dreibund,  see  Triple  Alliance 

Dreyfus  case,  178 

Dual  Alliance  (Germany  and  Aus- 
tria), 79;  (Russia  and  France), 
141 

Duel,  see  Mensur 

Dynasty,  see  Hohenzollern 

Education,  Emperor  on,  98  seq. 

Edward  VII,  at  Kiel,  253  ;  visits 
Berlin,  323  ;  funeral,  327 

Elector,  Great,  64,  72 

Emperor,  birth,  12  ;  marriage,  37  ; 
brothers  and  sisters,  18 ;  off- 
spring, 40 ;  first  visit  England, 
20 ;  at  Bonn,  29 ;  on  Art,  207  ; 
and  theatre,  355  ;  on  religion, 
246 ;  character,  363  seq.;  and 
people,  368,  372 

Empress,  present,  marriage,  37  ; 
character,  39 

Farmer,  Emperor  as,  334 

Finance  reform,  321 

Fleet,     English,    at     Kiel,     253; 

American,  244.  See  Navy. 
Flora  bust,  324  seq. 


INDEX 


Foreign  policy,  in  Orient,  199  seq.; 
Emperor's,  269 

France,  and  Germany,  51 ;  Franco- 
German  Agreement,  1911,  266 

Frankfort,  treaty  of,  153 

Frederick  the  Great,  death,  120; 
tomb,  121  ;  and  navy,  167  ; 
statue,  242  ;  Emperor  and,  251 

Frederick  III,  14;  as  Crown 
Prince,  45  ;  last  illness,  54 

Frederick,  Empress,  15  seq.;  Bis- 
marck and,  44 ;  death,  204 

Future,  "Our  future  lies  on  the 
water,"  203 

General  Elections,  280,  333 

"  Germans  to  the  Front,"  245 

Germany,  "  Greater,"  146  ;  to-day, 
366  ;  foreign  policy,  199,  269 

George  V,  174,  237,  339 

George,  Lloyd,  speech,  336 

Goluchowski,  Count,  279 

Goschen,  Lord,  160 

Government,  dynastic  not  demo- 
cratic, 56  seq. 

Great  Elector,  Emperor  and,  72  ; 
German  navy  and,  166 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  338 

Grieg,  composer,  225  ;  death,  287 

Griscom,  ambassador,  319 

Guelphs,  333 

Guildhall,  speech  at,  1891,  75; 
1907,  283 

Hamburg- Amerika  line,  367 

Hannover,  333 

Harvard  University,  272 

Heine,  13,  374 

Heligoland,  150 

Henry,   Prince,    18 ;    sent    Kiaut- 

schau,  165  ;  visits  America,  241 
Highcliffe  Castle,  285 


Hill,  Dr,  D.  ].,  318  seq. 
Hinzpeter,  Dr.,  287 
Hodel,  attempt,  43 
Hohenlohe-Schillingsfiirst,  Prince, 

47  ;  character,  153 ;  chancellor, 

185 ;  resigns,  187 
Hohenzollern,  2,  n,  17,  23,  41,  56, 

72;  Divine  Right  and,  62  seq.,  332 

Iltis,  gunboat,  195 
Italy,  261  seq. 

Jameson  raid,  Emperor's  telegram 

on,  154  ;  date  of,  159 
Jews,  Emperor  and,  378 
Journalists,  attack  on,  329 
Junker,  123 

Ketteler,  von,  murder  of,  195 

Kiautschau,  145,  150 

Kiel,  canal,  144 ;  first  regatta,  do.  ; 
harbour,  168;  American  squadron 
at,  244  ;  Edward  VII  at,  253 

Koenigsberg,  speech  at,  332 

Kruger,  telegram,  the,  154  seq.; 
European  tour,  155 

Kulttirkampf,  Emperor  and,  50 

Labourdonnais,  167 
Labour  Party,  93 
Leoncavallo,  253 
Liberalism,  Emperor  and,  126 
Liman,  Dr.  Paul,  62,  360 
Limitation  of  armaments,  340 
List,  Prof.,  168 
Lloyd  George,  speech,  336 
Louise,  Queen,  41 
Luderitz,  149 

Mackenzie,  Sir  Morell,  16,  54 
Madrid  Convention,  263 
Magna  Charta,  Germany's,  I 
Mahan,  Captain,  164 


394 


WILLIAM   OF   GERMANY 


Manila,  170 

Marakesch,  264 

Marble  Palace,  118 

"  March  Days,"  128  seq. 

Mensur,  29  seq. 

Menzel,  painter,  179 ;  death,  255 

Moabit  riots,  329 

Mommsen,  Emperor  and,  251 

Monroe  doctrine,  240 

Morocco,  255  seq. 

Navy,  German,  First  Navy  Law, 
145  ;  Prince  William  and,  163  ; 
early  history  of,  166  ;  auctioned, 
168 ;  early  proposals,  169  seq.; 
legislative  stages,  171  ;  Grey's 
proposal,  317 

New  Palace,  Potsdam,  116 

Nobiling,  attempt,  42,  90 

"  November  Storm,"  289  seq. 

Open  door,  The,  257 

"  Our   future  lies  on   the  water," 

203 
Oxford  university,  284 

Palestine,  145  ;  journey  to,  176 

Panther,  264 

Parliament,  introduction  ;  parlia- 
mentary rule,  58  ;  chancellor 
and,  291  ;  Emperor  and,  294. 
See  Reichstag 

"  Personal  regiment,"  289,296,371 

Peters,  Carl,  149 

"  Place  in  the  sun,"  204 

Polypus,  removed,  250 

Potsdam,  199 

Prussia,  at  Emperor's  birth,  12  ; 
Diet,  293  ;  electoral  reform  in, 
316 

Quinquennat,  152 


Raid,  Jameson,  159 
Rationalism,  344,  369 
Reaction,  123 
Realpolitik,    see     Weltpoliiik ;     in 

sport,  357 
Rechtstaat,  369  seq. 
Reichstag,  introduction,  280,  292, 

333,  377 

Reinsurance  treaty,  133 

Religion,  Emperor  on,  246 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  284 

Richard,  Prof.,  370 

"  Roland  von  Berlin,"  253 

Roosevelt,  Alice,  241  ;  president, 
253 ;  visits  Berlin,  325  seq.  ;  pro- 
fessorships, 272 

Russia  and  Germany,  relations,  80 

Russo-Japanese  war,  252 

Saladin,  177 

Samoa,  151 

Sans  Souci,  119,  179 

Sardanapalus,  235 

Septennat,  53,  152 

Seymour,  Admiral,  195 

Shimonoseki,  treaty  of,  193 

"  Shining  armour,"  328 

Social  Democracy,  introduction  ; 
Emperor  and,  87  ;  history  of,  89  ; 
programme,  91  ;  causes  of,  94  ; 
Socialist  laws,  103,  279  seq. 

Socialism,  92.  See  Social  Demo- 
cracy 

Sport,  in  Germany,  357 

"  Star  of  commerce,"  phrase,  165 

State,  German  interpretation  of, 
292 

Stein,  Dr.  Adolf,  158 

Stoessel,  General,  195,  253 

Stone,  Melville,  242 

Suffragettes,  Emperor  and,  332 

Sultan,  promise  to,  145,  177 

Swinemunde  despatch,  244 


INDEX 


Taku  Forts,  195 

Tangier,  256,  259  ;  Emperor's 
speech  at,  260,  268 

Theatre,  Emperor  on,  230  ;  Ger- 
mans and  the,  254 

"Times,"  the,  297,  299,  301,  324 

Tirpitz,  von,  Admiral,  338 

Tower,  ambassador,  318 

Trade  Unionism,  92  seq. 

Transvaal,  156  seq. ;  303 

Tree,  Sir  Beerbohm,  287 

Treitschke,  von,  on  Divine  Right, 
59  ;  on  Bismarck,  125 

Trench,  Captain,  338 

Triple  Alliance,  Emperor  on,  77  ; 
history  of,  78  ;  provisions,  79  ; 
renewals,  38,  339 

"  Urias  Letter,"  142 
Universities,   England    and    Ger- 
many compared,  98 


"  Unser  Fritz,"  14 

Venezuela,  158,  239 
Victoria  Louise,  Princess,  333 
Victoria,  Queen,  167  ;  death,  201 
"  Von  Gottes   Gnaden,"   56    seq.  ; 
doctrine  to-day,  68 

Waldersee,  Countess,  45  ;  Count, 

46,  196 

Weihaiwei,  194 
Weltpolitik,  51,   144;    Biilow    on, 

147 ;    open     door     and,     201 ; 
j      foreign  policy  and,  201, 192,  201, 

203 
William  I,  career,  42  ;  character, 

43  ;  death,  54  ;  parliament  and, 

294 

Williams,  George  Valentine,  232 
Wyberg,  Frank,  383 

Zeppelin,  Count,  358 


Ube  (Bresbam  press, 

UNWIN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED, 
WOKING  AND  LONDON. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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